HOME-THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD
BY
PRAFULLADATTA GOSWAMI, M.A.
(Rendered
by the Author from Assamese)
The
night looms outside and the wind wails,
sadness
steals into the hollow of the mind,
sadness
for somebody away,
away
five-hundred miles,
drawing
water from the well
under
the bowing banana leaves.
She
looks yearningly beyond the river,
and
I see her over a swirling waste,
muddied
with the might of its flood;
I
see her through the reeds on the bank
and
the wild look that her eyes wear.
She
does not speak,
God
did not give her speech,
He
gave her eyes instead
and
two dimpled cheeks.
The
flood’ll go down and the paddy sway,
the
women will catch fish in the fields,
laugh
and abuse each other.
But
she is alone there looking beyond the river,
for
I am away…..