LAXMI NARAYAN MAHAPATRA
You handed flowers to me
priceless blooms
What can compare with them?
At dawn we stood on nectar-steps
bathed in sunrays
In front loomed the
highway.
A carpet of grass around
with dew drops, glistening pearls.
A harvest of fruit and
a girdle of green woods.
Far away the birds lost their way in blue
void.
You plucked some flowers
what flowers I can’t tell
You gave them to me
and they tuned in me
some mystique symphony,
flowers of velvet feel
in my closed palm
priceless blooms
a petal of love with flowers
fairer than the blooms,
what ravishing smell
what colours that defy
all the fancies I have
It sets a limit to love infinite.
The blooms smile in my hands
as it smiled before
you giggle and whisper words
while I fail to understand
neither can I hear
I only know
the flowers are priceless.
–Translated from Oriya by the Poet