Wounded Alasi Poem by Saroj Padhi

Caught in wind and rain, in throes of pain,
the terror-stricken Alasies hang from stem
like faded dreams, from broken boughs
without much honey or poetry inside them-
to make Dhangdas or Dhangdies dance
to tune of bees under a Sun's meek flame;

river Muran sings of a dying faith
of folk rotting in dread of suspicious Naxals
who prowl like blood hungry pachyderms
in the thinning jungles of Ambaguda
over which a tremulous moon loiters
like an orphan in a starless sky,
in search of her long dead parents
whose shadows lull the tired lilies
to sleep on muddy ripples that sigh
in the bosom of a night
on draughts of salap quite high!

N.B: 1.Alasi-yellow flowers found abundantly in hilly regions of Koraput n other tribal dists of Odisha
2. Salap: a local inebriating drink made from Salap trees