A Rock In Sleep Poem by Pradip Saikia

The fair boy transformed into a rock

Departing through the last gate
How pitiful was that evening

Suddenly somewhere
A million miles away

Invisible silvery light sprayed with blue
The boy hunting for plums
Is now a piece of white rock
Pierced by an arrow

In the shadowy twilight
A sleepless statue
With an ebony face
His amazed white voice
In a sorrowful, rocky posture
My coughing voice dies

A flag dancing in the white
A stone in eternal sleep
A song dissolved in the whirlpool of eyes

Ripe gooseberry
O my boy
Wearing ashen black shirt


# Translated from Assamese to English by: Bibekananda Chowdhury