UMANATH BHATTACHARYA
Had I flourished in the days of our
Great Sanskrit poets I would have left
to the delight of the lovers of poetry
Quite a few marvellous
poems depicting your body
from head to foot showing my mastery in
the classical figures of speech and robust metres.
But the technique has undergone a sea change,
It’s out of fashion to indulge in such
rhetoric.
Otherwise, I, too, am aware where the roses
bloom and the violet lilies: where flutter
the lotus twins and floats the crescent moon
in the dusky sky. Such beauty spots
do enamour my muse
too. But my heart
yearns for something much deeper, I tell you.
I shall go on a voyage across the high
seas of your heart and discover a new world
where no man has ever anchored his boat.
There the meadows, woods and groves, the
hills
and lakes are far glamorous and blissful than
this orb’s.
There shall I build a shrine in a cosy nook
And offer my adoration to you. The hymns
that I would chant will be the depsair of such masters
As Amaru or Bhartrihari, Bilhan or Vatsyayana.