On The Grass At Jhatinga Poem by Pallab Chaudhury

I saw a bird with a wound on the wing,
Lying on the pale elegiac grass
With gray eyes like fruits of cane.
Perhaps he started the journey from Hawaii.
There, he spent a couple of days.
Thereafter, he followed the eastern wind.
He didn't lose himself in Bermuda
And didn't have an inert fall too
On the Atlantic Ocean, in some cold winter night.
Perhaps, he had a thought of going
To Caroline Island via Varanthangle.
Who knows- he might have planned afterwards
To return to Hawaii back?
In this way of journey he moved
Round the earth many a time.
He came to know darkness follows light
And the light follows the darkness.
But what made him so sad!
He lost his entire hopes- the urge to fly;
Failed in responding to the call of the horizon
Leaving the nest on the sky,
He hit some door in the darkness of Jhatinga
Following some strange signal…

Did men pollute his zone of travel?
Or, is it a curse of modernism?
He lost the symphony of life
In the mist of silver rain-drops.
With the wound he has been waiting
For an endless sleep.
He has left the food and drink.
Oh! He has forgotten how to wipe off
The pain of life by the flip of wings…


Dated: 26-09-2017.
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*Jhatinga is a hilly place in Assam
(India)where birds commit suicide.