The Waves Over The Flags Poem by Pradip Saikia

Plastic flower
Sky of raw turmeric
You have crossed over

You have crossed over
A steel forest
The colourless thoughts of
Clamour and the indecent tongues

The footprints and weariness of countless pedestrians
On the street

Shouts of rocky hard air
The passionate youthfulness of nocturnal animals
The dreamy siesta of a flock of birds
You cannot be touched by the amazing sky
Where the ashes of the yagna conceals the great sun

You are the uprooted roots of the soul
Variegated seeds
Fiery hymns

You have come crossing over the river
Senseless depth

Your self absorbing journey
Through the heart of the sacred sins
Of hunger and thirst

You have crossed over -
Ice cold bridges
Scalding houses
Town of earth
cornfields
Fertile crematorium

You have come crossing over
Unblossomed screw pine lead bullet
Dust covered woman
Voice of hilly cicadas and deep water
Stream of perspiration of people
The smell of raw country liquors
Of the whirlpools

You have come crossing over sounds
Pronounced and unpronounced
Words of the range of words
Their lives

You have come
crossing over
The banned red slogans
crossing over
The waves of the flags
Pinned on the chests of dead men

Crossing over
The dangerous armoury
And the night watchman


# Translated from Assamese to English by: Bibekananda Chowdhury