Beyond Land and Time

The Horses

(Ghorā)

Translated by Tapan Jyoti Barua

Not that we’re all dead and lost—even so

new scenario keep cropping up all the time:

Mahin’s horses are busy chewing grass

in the moonlit field of late autumn,

As if Paleolithic horses they are—out to-day to graze

with a craving for grass

On the weird dynamo of the earth.

There’s a stink whiffed from the stable in drafty night-wind;

On a steel machine drops off the rustling rueful straw;

A couple of teacups are lying about like some dozy kittens

under the dubious threat of some wounded pariah dogs.

Chilled to the bone, they make for a restaurant nearby.

The paraffin lamp has just gone off in the oval stable.

Puffed out by the serene indifference of time;

Touching the moonlight of the strange Neolithic

silence of these horses.