Friday, November 16, 2012

The Doves Of My Eyes


The doves of my eyes strike against 
the steel of the sky, 
and repulsed, return to earth, 
where, each day you wait alone 
to discover the many meanings of life and death. 

When the words, with their little palms, 
touch the body of the motionless sands, 
running through the grey heat of noons 
I seek ancestral memories in your flesh. 

You whisper the secrets of leaf and grass, 
of cliffs and woods, moss and shell, 
in forlorn nights through the tatter of clouds 
the myths of the moon sailing to its death. 

As you retrieve the ruined body of April 
drifting helplessly in the whirlpools of sand, 
it seems you love me and want me to come, 
but where is your soul? and where my body? 

And when the doves of my eyes return, 
ripping the sky's wrongs, it is time's river 
that flows through the weariness of your flesh 
and carries my dreams along. 

Leaves fall, unheard, in the quiet noon, 
and the sun respires in silence. 
The pine forest pales like smoke in the sky. 
And I don't remember when, the doves of my eyes 
flew into Ujjain or Cuttack, pursuing you.

Translated by Jayanta Mahapatra

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