Priyam Goswami Choudhury |
|
JOGIGHOPA
I have taken a train to you;
the shore of the Brahmaputra flaking
like the scales of a giant dying fish.
They told me to look out of the window,
there there, that’s Nepal,
would you believe it?
I have tried to follow the bend in the river
it snakes ahead at Jogighopa
the boatmen are sweating. Salt
coming on to the scales of the fish;
try to taste it slowly
your body is supple –
it left me shaking inside.
*
RAVINE
To consider simply – all human speech as immense and interminable babble. The tower now
not erect but piled higher and higher than imagined. In spite all of that, you must imagine, I
saw you walk wordlessly into a frozen ravine. I thought you would have wept otherwise. It
was better this way.
I was at the window – stuck in some sort of love and waving back. And you – walking
without a strain, in your brown shirt, waving softly – entered a thawing ravine this winter.
*
I have taken a train to you;
the shore of the Brahmaputra flaking
like the scales of a giant dying fish.
They told me to look out of the window,
there there, that’s Nepal,
would you believe it?
I have tried to follow the bend in the river
it snakes ahead at Jogighopa
the boatmen are sweating. Salt
coming on to the scales of the fish;
try to taste it slowly
your body is supple –
it left me shaking inside.
*
RAVINE
To consider simply – all human speech as immense and interminable babble. The tower now
not erect but piled higher and higher than imagined. In spite all of that, you must imagine, I
saw you walk wordlessly into a frozen ravine. I thought you would have wept otherwise. It
was better this way.
I was at the window – stuck in some sort of love and waving back. And you – walking
without a strain, in your brown shirt, waving softly – entered a thawing ravine this winter.
*