Black Roots White Roots Poem by Pradip Saikia

A.
It's a thousand years silence
But they are still immortal

The astronauts of quietude
Swimming in ether
The black roots
White roots
Of darkness

Lustful and cold like a reptile
Angry and calm
Like the primeval animal
That flies spitting sparks
That which is experienced with
Uncountable screams pain of love and
The final stare of death
The black roots white roots
Speaking the truth of
Life
And also of
Darkness

B.
Their amazing steel tongue
At touching distance
Of my figure
Not belonging to me

The tourists coming down
To touch the flowers of the ruins
Cannot be pointed by my helpless gesture
The black roots white roots
That have coloured their chest purple
That breathes lying in puddles of bloods

Since before creation to eternity
They traverse
Through the highways of the sky
That which is
Intoxicated
Agitated
Insane
By stealing the virginity of every piece of blossoming flower

That which is dancing
In the rhythm of death
Of a candle-clock
Melting
Dying
That imbibes all the hues of the picturesque world
And regurgitates darkness

The living body of every word
Oozing from my lips
And
The one that thrashes my kindred's dead bodies
On the stone quay

Thattalks
The black roots white roots

C.
It is roots everywhere
Today
As one shuts the eyes
As one extend one's hand
What a mystery

One pronounces
Throwing the thunder of ridicules
The meaninglessness of the uncovered mirror
Dreamt in a dream

# Translated from Assamese to English by: Bibekananda Chowdhury