"The Evening Comes" by Sangram Jena

translated by Bibhu Padhi (October 2014)

The evening comes.

Your memory returns

like the day’s last tiredness.

So many wishes, such strong

wish not to wish at all,

so many givings, so many

all memories in a hazy

darkness, inside a fog.

 

It is shadowy everywhere,

From the threshold of worship

To the tree-sequestered

Platform, river-bank,

mangroves, the fields

under which the crops

are stored, mature.

The gardens, even

On the level-floor

In the house’s centre.

 

The dew-soaked leaves look

like your half-wet saree,

the hills on the farther side

of the fog are the loosening

lines of your body. It is

not quite difficult to know

the fog-enclosed hills,

the body, the wishes, the soul.

On returning home, again I find

 

those familiar faces, voices,

waitings, routine gods.

Though on my eyes there is

a deep brush of dusk—

of an unseen wish and hope,

waiting, and your unending

pretension of not having

anything at all.

 

 

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