COTTAGE DWELLER
DEBIDAS RAY
You have set up your cottage with unbolted door
by the side of the path under the shade of the banyan tree
When I pass in front of it, I think to myself
that I too had a claim over your home.
Caught in a whirlwind, I lost that right –
being busy with too much work and responsibilities galore.
The passerby who walks this way
quite unmindfully comes and sits down here.
The manner he sits is the same as he walks –
he comes and goes in his own laid back style.
His seat is light and very little luggage he carries -
straight in he comes and straight out he goes.
I, on my part, construct a house foregoing any rest,
build floor upon floor keeping an eye on the sky.
In the complex web of thoughts I try to entrap distant time,
in the process, I myself get enmeshed in the same web.
Eventually I end up forfeiting my right over the path.
In the beginning of the poem Kutirbasi these three stanzas were
found in the original hand written draft which was yet to be finalized.
Sanchayita,11thed. 2010. p872-73.
Published in POETRY WORLD, vol.5(no2) June, 2012,p17
FATIGUE
DEBIDAS RAY
Pardon me if I feel tired – pardon me my Lord
Pardon me if ever I lag behind on the road.
If my heart trembles like this, as it does today
Ignore that pang and pardon me Lord.
Forgive that meanness, Oh Lord,
Forgive if ever I look back.
If due to day’s heat under the burning sun,
the garland offered in the puja-plate dries up
Ignore that dullness and pardon me Lord.
Ignore that dullness and pardon me Lord.
English translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s poem
entitled ‘Klanti’ from his collection of poems
Geetali’ in Sanchayita 4thed, 1943.p525.
Published in The Visva-Bharati Quarterly
Volume:-19-20 October-2010-September-2011 pp.109-110.
