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WINGED-ANTS by Manua Das (translated by Rabindra K. Swain)

July 1, 2011 Contributed By: Manua Das, Rabindra K. Swain

            For days together
our wings keep on sprouting
under the ground, in the dark;
absolutely light and clear
raindrops.
One can see through the wings
our bodies,
dirty and clayish.

For days together
there is no rain.
In scalding heat, in hunger
we keep clinging to the earth.
Suddenly our wings begin to sprout.
Is there a rain, deepening
in some corner of the sky?

In our wings the whispering of rain.
In our cold bones
the hide-and-seek of the wind.
Intolerable is some others’ hunger.
Only excitement, our excitement
to break ourselves free.
As if all of us are prepared.

We’ll fly up, up and up, bursting through earth,
crossing the branches of trees,
into the sky, into more sky,
beating our wings, all alone,
thousands of us, abandoning our own flocks, till we are lost
in the bright light of rain.
Like rain
we are all forgetful of ourselves.
Again we are back on the earth,
beaten by the rain.

For days together
there is no rain.
Scattered on the earth
thousands and thousands
of wings,
silent, motionless.

Like a grain of rain,
as it were,
we are all, each of us.

Those of us
who survive
enter the earth again
bodily,
feed on the earth,
fight with the heat
and lie waiting for the rain.

For days together
there is no rain.

 

Return to table of contents for Issue 4 Summer 2011

Filed Under: Poetry, Translation Posted On: July 1, 2011

Further Reading

Helsinki
by Niles Baldwin

I approached the truck like I had never seen one before. I didn’t drive but I had seen a lot of people turn a key to make a car start. I wished I could do that to the truck. It would take a long time to get warm and melt the ice that made it stuck where it was.

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by Jillian Weise

#IfYouGetThis #CripTheVote #SendMeADM #DeafTalent #WithTheNameOf #DisabledAndCute #ThePlaceWhere #ActuallyAutistic #WeSatTogether #DisabilityTooWhite #For26Days #AbleismExists #NotUsExactlyBut #AccessIsLove SEE MORE: Interview with Jillian Weise THE CYBORG JILLIAN WEISE is a poet, video artist, and disability rights activist. Cy’s first book, The Amputee’s Guide to Sex, was reissued in a tenth-anniversary edition with a new preface. The Book of Goodbyes won […]

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resting on concrete on a plank of wood     an old woman counts herself lucky * absurdities manifest themselves a boy runs naked up the street     a heron plucks white feathers from its plumage weather vanes spin erratically * time is a wooden god     is the gull shit on its head     is lichen creeping   time […]

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