Jayanta Mahapatra The Poet Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Jayanta Mahapatra
The poet taking of the lingam-yoni motif,
The myth and mystery of creation,
The yoga-yoginis
And their attributes and denominations.

Sitting in the temple complex,
He keeps thinking of the windows,
The door planks,
The small doorways of the rock-built temples
Telling of yore
And its hoary days.

The Konark Sun-temple
Radiating in sunshine,
With the Sun-god seated on a chariot
Drawn by white horses
Catches us aflame.

The grotesque wooden crafted-gods and goddesses
Of Jagannath Puri,
Krishna, Balabhadra and Subhadra
Ogling in his poetry
And he deriving from the Ratha-yatra.

The panda-danas continue on the sea beach,
The asth-kalashas immersed being in,
Rites and rituals continuing in
With rains and summer-time
And the choric chants coming from.

In the form of the prayers in the temples,
Rites and rituals continuing in
Or the bodies being cremated on the sands
Of Puri, the area adjacent to the temple and the beach,
Surrounding the Swarga-dwara.

Jayanta an Odia poet of Odisha
Telling of the cartography and demography of Orissa,
The place of his birth, nativity and roots,
The ecology of it,
The lakes, bird sanctuaries, hills and rivers.

A poet of coastal Orissa
Of rains and rites, summers and siestas,
Mango groves and sun-burnt earth,
Hamlets and thorps,
He views life in his own way.

The myths of the dark hamlets
Standing against the backdrop of the hills,
He tells of the darker myths,
Superstition, backwardness, underdevelopment,
Illiteracy, poverty and hunger.

The tales of the dark daughters strike him,
Holding the hands
Tell they the story
Of their toil, tears, sweat and blood,
Their trouble and tribulation.