A Song Beyond Death Poem by Prayag Saikia

A genius elder sister
Transliterated out
‘The River of Madness'
The drama of Tafiq-Al-Hakim
From the Islamic Literature
A book supplied by
An ordinary younger brother

Its form
Was beamed into ether
By the
Dibrugarh Radio Centre

Researcher of the soil
That elder sister
Is in a boat
On an unseen river

She can no longer translate
Someone's stormy stream of feeling
She can only merge
In the flow of ink of the eternal pen
As a requiem
Lucknow
The city of songs has recorded
The final Beat of Heart
The ultimate tune of breath

Her ordinary brother
Is penning a song beyond death
Remembering with a drop of sensual tear

What was there
So charming jewellery
Of eternal wisdom
That has become irresistible
Even for an antique ‘gharana' of tune

(Translated from Original Assamese by Bibekananda Choudhury)