Dance Of The Evening River Poem by Pradip Saikia

The dark blue fog embraced evening
When love was deported
The lost Komal gandhar
Of the violinist
The boat of the glass paper
With sail destroyed in the hail storm

In that ancient icy evening
A group of naked children
Hurricane flames through the chinks of the hut
Were buried in the cover of fog

Ashes of laughter gloom and dreams
Dumb grief struck women burnt lamps

The brick coloured sky of the accursed evening
In the vast greenery
The serpentine darkness of shrubs get gradually dimmed
The shameless providence in the hollow of Sonaru tree
Youthfulness of the reckless owl

Through this naked scenery
Through this snow and shadowy painfulness
What has left like a lightning strike
Through the Shahjadi alleys of endless space
With the stars chariots love and the speed of a stallion
Thou name is Agastya

Vindhyachal at the distance
Cotton white emptiness
That cannot be detected with bare eyes

# Translated from Assamese to English by: Bibekananda Chowdhury