Jayanta Mahapatra's Relationship Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

With a quote from Walt Whitman's Song of Myself,
Jayanta Mahapatra
Starts the poem Realtionship
With his mythical stride and visionary glide
Clutching it all
Oriya topography and mapping,
Cartography and demography.

A poet of Orissa and Orissaan landscapes,
Myth and mysticism,
History, art and culture,
Populace and natural habitats,
Lakes, rivers and hills,
The rock-built temples
And their sculptures
Inscribed upon.

It is difficult to analyze
And annotate
What he takes up,
But the myths and motifs
All-encompassing,
Inclusive of it all,
Dream, allegory and imagination,
Imagery and reverie.

With the phallic stone and the vulture
The poem starts
And takes to
The mythical scapes,
The rivers and lakes
As he does so often
To impart an Oriya fervour
To his reflection.

A poet of the lingam-yoni motif,
How would he hold the linga in the eye,
The Konark Sun-temple,
The dark daughters,
What to say,
Say about his poetry
Kaleidoscopic,
Just turn over the pages,
Ask you not for their meaning.