NOON PRAYER

Along with the flow of my blood,  
through the body's blue cavern,  
they come,  
those millions of fireflies, stars and nebulae;  
thousands of fish lift me,  
like memories, from the ocean floor.  
And, like a snake,  
the twelve-cubit-long sigh of despair  
rises from the small temple of my body  
and crawls up its broken walls.  

Drenched in rain  
and in the anguish of moonlight, 
many inert shadows  
huddle about its burnt-out wick's smell,  
and the newcomer who once left  
returns through the open spaces in the leaves.  

Morning brings back the body's distances,  
with bewildered cries  
night-birds swaying from its nerves fly away,  
as the fortified morning  
breaks through the chest-walls.  

And I lose myself,melting away elsewhere.  
Elsewhere,  
my sacrificial fire's smoke rises into the sky.  
  
  
Translation :
Jayanta Mahapatra