PHANI MOHANTY
THE SUNSET
The sun sets behind the hills,
songs swell, cattle plod their way home
and dream-boats float on
the flood of flute-tune;
the sun sets behind the hills and beyond
the cliffs and crests.
The pine woods lengthen their shadows
like giraffe stretching its neck
and the wayfarer sings on his way home,
and one can hear
the strains of a plaintive flute
in the mottled shadows beyond the hills.
You come stealthily tiptoeing
crossing the marshland and ferns,
leaping over fields and fence.
You come tinkling the ankle-bells
like the incorporeal soul,
you come to play to spraying colour with my blood
so that you can forget who you are.
All ways are lost,
all memories are wiped clean
all words dissolve in the blood gush
of this sunset
and the accursed night seems never to end.
The sun sets behind the hills
and shadows lengthen growing dense;
the wayfarer breaks down in a cold apathy.
The lonely shadow walks, losing its legs;
hands cannot clasp the shadows of one's own
and the sunset spreads a shoreless sea of pain
unfathomed, unplumbed.
Translation :
P. Asit
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