translation: KRISHNA DULAL BARUA
The rickety boat set sail
And sank within a league from the river-bank
How could the boatman climb ashore
His escape from the sudden crisis
Ushered in huge changes to his life
The ludo game of ladders and snakes
Shone before his eyes as whopping progress
Seeing the relief of the boatman
The river too began to gallop off
Beholding everything from a little distance away
Hawking perceived :
For at least a hundred years more
Nothing can impede the path of human
progress
Boundless clouds, large and small, crowd the sky
Amid the clouds a wispy strand full of dreams
Wings grow on the site of my land
The horizon of clouds with broken dreams my entity
Boarded on a roaring aircraft you pursue me
Lagging too far behind
You remain clueless about my entity
Anubhav Tulasi is an Assamese poet, translator
and academic from Gwahati, India.
Photo: Bhaskarjyoti Bhuyan
