Tonight | Dr. Pranjit Bora (trans: Anuradha Gohain )

Tonight again these tiny quiet neem flowers
Your breath is turning white
Your entire body is turning white
And a fragile white virgin night
Is running around your first monsoon tresses

So thick, noiseless—for whom are you waiting like this at the window
So blue, quiet—whom are you searching for like this in the moonlit grass?

 For whom are you waiting like this, does he have on his body the smell of ripe, lush fields
with both hands have you pulled up a laden branch
are the flowers falling all over your body
on the edge of your breasts and the tresses of the nights

are the neem flowers falling
are you getting drenched
in the crisp festive night?

 This poem has been translated from Assamese by Anuradha Rajkumari Gohain, a freelance writer in Delhi.

Indian Review | Author & Translator Profile | Dr. Pranjit Bora is presently working as an Assistant Professor in Assamese at Dibrugarh University, Dibrugarh. He has published five collections of poetry, three novels, and several books on literary criticism.