Poems by Debdas Acharya
Come, O Wind
The stagnant waters
feel themselves confined
only when the breezes stir
does a tremor awaken in their breast
My own heart too, now
yearns for that tremor
I cannot be the aimless reed
drifting upon the river’s flow
wind, oh come
and stir me to my core
Like a Grasshopper
My thoughts take flight
on unreasoning wings
like a grasshopper perched
on the tip of a blade of grass
The world sprawls all around
deep as the ocean
high as Everest
every single point, a mystery
In this life, I fly
within mystery, unreasoning
The Cosmic Household
I am ceaselessly constructing
plucking from within the chaotic sketches of dreams
this ephemeral worldly abode
this everyday existence
I arrange all according to my will
as though I gaze upon golden effigies
lost in a bewildered ecstasy
by the tender glow of candlelight
As Resides in the Depths
A shattered harmonium
does not proclaim the cessation of song
When the plaster
of an ancient palace sheds
unveiling the tenacious skeleton of bricks
people name it rubble
From it’s core, I glean prisms
and cast upon the earth
the touch of seven hues
Just as nature’s grandest grace
is an oasis blossoming in the desert
Translated by Deep Sekhar Chakraborty
