Collage Poem by Prayag Saikia

The indifferent boar
Scours for food
In the heap of hair strands
Thrown out from the salon

By the side of the road
Alive with speed
A handcart
Immobile

In the wall nearby
Standing by the adjacent drain
A clean ad of delicious food
And
In a school behind it
Full of the excitement of knowledge
Being imparted and received
One two three
High and low tide of an arithmetical table

A little girl visited our shop
While we had been eagerly waiting for customer
After she bought her provisions
We got her identity
She is a girl child
From a degraded society

A little excitement has spread
In a tension-free time
The blotter of the mind has sucked up
Longings and hatred
A boar has gone away hungry
After scouring
The shadow of the little adolescent girl
Disappears by the immobile handcart
An arithmetic table has stalled at the hundredth count
The silence of the school
Has become eager at the hour of recess
It is assimilated with silence in reality
The collage of poems
Encompass them all
Perhaps
I am the only interested reader
Of it
Eternally

(Translated from Original Assamese by Bibekananda Choudhury)