Nitoo Das (India)
Notes on the Rhododendron at Laitkynsew
1.
This flower steals your eyes.
You have nowhere else to look.
2.
When it falls, leaden with love
and a woman's accusations,
the earth cries out its name.
3.
I am so alone here, but I walk on mud
clothed in red flowers and tell myself
go there, go there.
4.
The tree screams with birds.
They recur, pollen-blessed.
5.
It will take some time to drip its frills
dry in the wind. It is not yet time for this bud.
6.
This flower cannot birth a garden, etc.
7.
It needs dirt, the mark of teeth,
the sullen smell of decay.
8.
It is both trance and nightmare: the colour
of a million smiles; the colour of gradual death.
9.
It seduces you into a border.
It wants you to make sense of crowds.
10.
It is a many-syllable flower escaping
the drumbeats of its name.
It is too vast for this poem.
1.
This flower steals your eyes.
You have nowhere else to look.
2.
When it falls, leaden with love
and a woman's accusations,
the earth cries out its name.
3.
I am so alone here, but I walk on mud
clothed in red flowers and tell myself
go there, go there.
4.
The tree screams with birds.
They recur, pollen-blessed.
5.
It will take some time to drip its frills
dry in the wind. It is not yet time for this bud.
6.
This flower cannot birth a garden, etc.
7.
It needs dirt, the mark of teeth,
the sullen smell of decay.
8.
It is both trance and nightmare: the colour
of a million smiles; the colour of gradual death.
9.
It seduces you into a border.
It wants you to make sense of crowds.
10.
It is a many-syllable flower escaping
the drumbeats of its name.
It is too vast for this poem.