AN ELEGY

Which bird's call-note  
possessed me ?  

Do you know it  
at its time of return  
to another guise :  
wings of marble,granite claws and beak  
and flights, speckles of memories.  

The kingfisher calls.  
For whose death are you responsible ?  

One among many bends  
of the river Daya,  
the mossy stone under its slow moving water  
and in its crevices  
fish, legend,sands like history  
and a floor of rotten leaves.  

In the neck-deep water  
if you look this way  
a narrow strip of sunshine  
where prophecy lies  
like a twelve-cubit-span sword.  

In the neck-deep water  
if you look that way  
a small patch of cloud  
drifts in like sobbings  
and a small fish gets startled.  

In space  
whose pointed gaze is this ?  
And does the river destroy  
what it creates ?  
  

Translation :
Rabindra K Swain