গুচ্ছ কবিতা

Poems by Rudra Kinshuk

IN PRAISE OF ISHPA

Horse Anecdote

The earthen horse reads the miracles 

of the Fokir, Dinarshahi Pir

 under the gulancha plant.

Condensed silence gets broken up

into pieces of probability

within the souls of infertile women.

Waterfalls glide down horsebacks. 

At the grace of the Fokir, the saint

our crops grow up

our women, too

to be festive and fertile every year.

Urbanized agony surges back

into the souls of the earthen horses.

I place all these at the feet of Dinarshahi

And the citrus groove

looks nostalgic

as if the widening blue

in a mystic song of Lalon Fokir.

Painting the House

Difficult are the days

 of painting a house,

from selection of paints 

to that of the season.

Even tranquilizers fail 

to soothe our apprehensions.

Painting a house is painting one’s own sky.

I have been reading

 interior design

to comprehend feathered choreography

of leaves in the rains.

Distant trees are getting

drenched to the core of silence.

Stone

Just the stones waiting to rescue us 

from the cries of the present

 the telescopes of faith pointed down at the ground. 

- Jayanta Mahapatra

Hundred and eight temples

 of Lord Shiva, here

Mahakal, the time eternal

resides within the souls of silence.

And my tourist eyes read the shadow

on the face of our young guide

at Kalna, the town 

of temples and mystics.

Pages of Shaiva Siddhanta 

open themselves to the wind,

coming inwards 

from the Ganga.

Fragrance of naval- roots 

reminds me of

memories of the wooden goddess

and the songs of Bhava Pagla, 

the saint eccentric.

Am I a seed 

with time still within?

Silent rocks can articulate silence only.

Roots and flowers are two aspirant ends

of a bridge over a river.

Water flowing under 

knows the anecdote

of lotus blooming within the spinal tube.

The Bird of Ether

The dark bird of ether

 that cured my wounds

 with its magic of soothing balm

 visited my dreams last night

.

After so many ages past 

it came back to my garden

with its ethereal body

I couldn’t touch it 

as it could get its fragrant feathers

 drenched or melting

In the dream of a silent bridge 

I play with the rough stones…

The Gardener

Wait still for the bird’s return

to silence in the evening.

Wait still for the buds blooming.

You water, you care

and love like a fool

 in this spidereric world.

Who cares to look 

at this waiting? 

Futile.

Haste forgetting

 is a clever palimpaste.

While weeding out the rhizomes

you ruminate Ramprosad.

For an Oriole

An oriole emerges

out of a small nest,

letters of a mysterious language

I decode it all by myself.

A wintry evening,

 mist and chill

 from a distant land 

a loving soul remembers me, 

I like it thinking.

I see the bird, 

its fragrant shadow. 

Who do you stand

 there in darkness?

Someone weeps

 somewhere in the woods.

The Wheel Chair

Don’t fly away to those cruel arms

I’ve been waiting for you

 for several ages with my soul looking like a pea.

I’ve no hands to touch upon.

Only two eyes feast on your sudden flight

 in the ethereal blue.

How does this wheelchair embrace

 the castellation of your stars?

Be  Happy

What things should I share

 with you?

These failures of words, 

tentative galaxies?

And roots 

that anchor me in your dream.

How can a bird that lullabies

 the winged fantasies look

 into the dark whispers in the soul of Yajati?

Be happy.

 This is my prayer when the sun 

walks over the footbridge 

of the reminiscent Gurjoyani river.

Farewell 

My dear soul, get prepared 

for another farewell

Farewell into silence, 

never to be broken again

Silence can best express 

a long journey, 

walking over fire, 

braving the volcanic Jatinga

Dews get collected 

on the wings of nilkantha birds

Don’t trespass

into the world of gods and goddess,

an outcast, an asura,  you are,

no elixir to be churned out

 from the depth of seas.

Her sharp trident for you

 always blazes.

First Love

I keep flowers 

on this piece of stone 

in solitude of this woods

 a bird hides a seed somewhere

 I don’t think I’ll return

 again along this road 

life is such a riddle,

the bird comes out of darkness

 I read its silence, 

as if an inspiration

on  the shadow of a half fallen tree

holding fasts to interrogation

Should I say this to be

 the second burning brazier?

Every love is the first love

with its own chalice…

Meeting

Should I trespass

 into her charmed world

 an island of clouds?

A mere hoopoe bird,

 acrophobic stays close to earth

This archetypal fire 

opens the unending travel

from one birth to another

in search of fifty one pieces 

of her divine body.

Meditation on Muse

Your silent footprints are 

the whispers of eternity.

A mortal barbet, I’ve wished 

Always to defy death

in remembrance of your red.

Muse, where do you live?

When does the sun rise there?

How does the rose bloom?

When death ravages everywhere,

I wait for your ethereal fragrance,

for a glimpse of that proverbial rose,

a lighthouse in this perennial darkness.

For the Distant Star

The distant star in the blue

twinkles in silence.

Its whisper breaks into dewdrops

on the blades of grass.

Dhimal, the boy speaks

is music to me in this small village

of North Bengal.

Should I kneel here for the whole night

Under this leparded sky and weep?

God is tears in silence, 

a remembrance of seeds.

For the distant star I’ll wait

another life of fragrant roots,

another life of water and pebbles.

Summer at Totopara

Tourist eyes look at them, strange,

mother and daughter,

picking up lice from here.

Extinguished fire under trees

speaks of them who left .

And adventures of Ishpa god

recede silently into forgetfulness.

Tourists find only the pebbles,

but one who smell wisp of fragrance 

of water underneath

is the lover. 

Summer at Totopara 

ends in the anecdotes of Pidua,

 the back-faced demon

and withering rivers.

The Lone Traveler

(In Memory of David McCutchion)

From the dawn to twilight

you walk among ruins

to listen to the whispers of stones

your camera got flashing on melting shadows

disappearing into the jaws,

the eternal dictates of time.

Yet love is an enigmatic musk deer

charmed in ephemeral fragrance.

The Deul temple 

near the forest of Goddess Shyamarupa

evokes the memory of weeping love.

Before the setting of the final dark

a collective howl of jackals 

over the puddles of the river Ajay beside

to signal the beginning of a new retrospective.

Remember

 Dear friend, remember 

me as a lone barbet,

 melting into rains

 for your perfumed bath in silence. 

Very mortal this soul, 

out of which emerges 

the weeping blue 

Use it as a mirror

Manisha’s Stone -forest

(For Nigel Hughes)

Manisha moves

along with the fossilized darkness

to the hot water kunda at Bakreswar.

A journey of a bird to

the eggs of eternity

wakes up rivers

within the embrace of your love.

Love is our religion,

No spirituality beyond that.

The earth grows smaller,

open your embrace.

Silence is the language

of eternity.

My friend speaks silence

before the bird

Meditation on Self

Pure wine drips down

on rice-crops, extending 

their aspiration to the blue.

Words, my dear words

reveal if there’s anything

to be sacred in life

but this light of the evening clouds.

Wind blows to the distant land

over our dwellings, 

our bird-incarnations,

the red and the blue.

Is this my motherland, 

blood-smeared, worn out?

And I remember

my memory of an Inuit life

which I’ve left in the soul

of a dog, pulling a sledge.

I call the old woodcutter 

and ask

if God weeps

within the rings of a felled tree.

The Bird of Ether 

I keep flowers on this piece of stone 

in solitude of this woods,

a bird hides a seed somewhere.

I don’t think I’ll return

again along this road, 

life is such a riddle,

nothing can be rewritten.

The bird comes out of nothing

I read her silence, 

as if an inspiration 

on the shadow of a half fallen tree

holding fast to dreams.

Should I say this to be

the second burning brazier?

Every love is the first love

with its own secret chalice.

The bird of ether

that can cure all my wounds

with her magic of soothing balm

visited my dreams.

.

After so many ages past

she came back to me

with her ethereal body.

I couldn’t touch her, 

I shouldn't have done so.

I only chant this prayer:

Get up well and be happy.

Memoir

Memory, a bird of silence

moves towards the blue horizon.

Leaves rustle and tearful seeds

burst into life. 

Horses of earth

graze on the celestial pastures. 

You promised to return one morning

by the obeisant paddy.

The evening settles down

on the tree-tops of Garhjungle.

The fort of Ichhai withered and cold,

by the golden sands of the river Ajoy

recounts the weeping tales 

of Mother Shyamarupa.

Come, my dear bird, 

come back again 

to this land of rains 

and dark seeds

to soothe the loving soul…

Notes

Ichhai: A character in Dharma Mangal was a worshiper of the Goddess Durga as Mother Shyamarupa.

Ishpa: A goddess of the Toto tribe, settled in the Totopara, near Madarihat of the district of Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, India

Ramprosad:  A great Shakti poet of Bengal of the medieval times. 

About Rudra Kinshuk

A bilingual poet, translator and critic, Rudra Kinshuk has contributed poems, translations and criticism to different journals and books including The Statesman, The Telegraph, the Asian Age, Famous Reporter, Studio, New England Review and the Little Magazine. His poems have been anthologized in a number of volumes. His books of poetry include Footprints on the Sands (1996) Portrait of a Dog as Buddha (1998), Marginal Tales of the Galloping Horses (2002), Rocks (Cooperative Poems, 2009), Meditations on Matricide (2012) and Fragrant Anchors (2013). He has to his credit two books of Santal folk songs trans-created into English Songs of the Wild Birds (1997) and Santal Marriage Songs (1999). He has also translated several contemporary Bengali poets into English and several contemporary major Greek poets including Seferis, Ritsos and Vlavionos into Bengali. He has been awarded a Junior Fellowship in the field of Literature (1997-1999) by the Department of Culture (M.H.R.D), New Delhi for his research project on Santal Folk literature. He has also been awarded the Kabita Pakshik Samman (2000) for his contribution to new poetry. He has written his PhD thesis on Contemporary Subaltern Fictions. His areas of interest include postcolonial theory and literature, contemporary Greek poetry, contemporary Bengali poetry, Indian folk literature and translation.

Books by Rudra Kinshuk

Poetry in English

1. Footprints on the Sands 1996

2. Portrait of a Dog as Buddha 1998

3. Marginal Tales of the Galloping Horses 2002

4. Rocks: Collaborative Poems 2009

5. Meditations on Matricide 2012

6. Fragrant Anchors 2013

Translation into English

1. Songs of the Wild Birds 1997

2. Santal marriage songs 1998

3. Selected Poems: Prabhat Choudhury 2005

4. Selected Poems: Rafique Ul Islam 2009

5. The Journey Infinite: Selected Poems of Lakshmikanta Kar 2013