Fish | Mahim Bora (trans. Krishna Dulal Barua)

Fish? golden silvery, fish? blue violet
Lustre of bright diamonds fish in millions
Coloured yearnings
Razor-slitting pace splitting the sea into halves
O’ irresistible!

With the flying fins
Shrouding even the sea’s wide expanse
Thwarting the summit-caressing waves
O’ eternal coloured yearning
Creation’s first offspring

Fish? golden silvery, fish? blue violet
Hued by birth hued by colours and
by innumerable deaths
In varied fish-traps
Nets, in the heart of the Ghiladhari,*
– yet immortal.
O’ fish o’ eternal fish

*Ghiladhari – a tributary of the Brahmaputra.