MIGRATORY COLOURS

MIGRATORY COLOURS - RAJU DAS

 

I am a Foreigner.

With a tattered sail as my Flag.

I present the migratory colours

Of the Baul’s song.

It isn’t the same

As retold endlessly,

The song has drifted, always and forever

But the love has changed meaning.

I now ride on wails of an elegy,

Of my big family.

Shivering on those epileptic strings

 Of the seized notes of an Ektara.

I smuggled in dreams,

Wrapped in Dhaka Jamdani.

Each was snared on these barbed nights

And throbs for the last minuet.

I also have a disheveled memory,

Parted in blood.

That struggles to reach across  

 With this raw pot.

  

There are also these small kicks of history,

Pregnant once again for consideration.

Searching for luck, on our mother's breast.

If history is a bastard, fix responsibility…

Till such time, the Lotus will meditate

In these stale waters of freedom,

Chanting: “Treat me as a king!”

Or better still, as a human being.