Kushal Dutta - Light And Shade

The moon beyond the bounds wakens
at evening, to the beat of drums
squatting at the rim of my arms
comes traipsing along to the barn
from the meadows down winding furrows
a couple of waves from a yellowing sea

Heavy winds, heavier paths
heaving shocks, grandee’s bliss

In the silence where all roads run mad
the insects wail in a rhapsody
as I trade in awake of a slithering cobra
of moonless dark and its
glowworm eyes
but unbeknown to me
a disembodied shape begins to follow me

In the sky floats scutched-cotton clouds
the moon that hides softly or shines
she reached out to the mist-drenched
ends of my hair streaming loose

The shadowy form teases my shadow
and then surges forward leaving it gaping
and then, like comrades in arms
will fall back and step in tune

My shadow shier in the wind, goes numb in the cold
in the hiss and rustle of fallen leaves
my shadow feels the shiver that runs
from my soles to clamber up and seize my heart

Often in passion the snake twins round the shadow
it grants and snap, the snake bites and on its bow
bloods congeals like ice in pain
it goes dark blue, collapses and its shadow enters my wind-pipe
spreads in my blood stream
I faint and squat right in the middle of the field
and, at the trundling dance of a remote will-ó-the-wisp
the wails of ghost of corpses close in on me

Suddenly a caressing stray wind
shakes the sheaves in shocks on my shoulder
and the patchy white clusters of my mind
is surely dispelled
all clouds gone, from the sky streams
down on my path, moonlight
and the tears of the moon
***
(Translated from Assamese by Prof. Pradip Acharya)

Kushal Dutta

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