Poems by Mamang Dai

Once Upon A Time In Pasighat
(for friends of a different sort)

The house is unswept.
Never mind whoever comes
Bamboo leaves scraping the floor
My friends are of a different sort

If you see a fly
Do not lift your white hand, my love,
the cobweb in the corner
Will do the job

And if the town lights die
We’ll sit with the wind
Inside, outside,
My friends are of a different sort

Each star has its soul.
In your sleeping eyes, my love,
Dreams will rise and fall
Slowly coming to rest

When the house grows old
Tomorrow, our children will know
Timelessness
With friends of their sort

Under the broad roof
Slanting beams of light,
The beauty of bone,
The universe on the walls.

I’m Going Back To Old

I’m going back to old
To the springtime of water,
And mesmerizing stories

Time, a silken rope
Summer night whispering illusion

Is it true a stranger out of nowhere
Is better than a lover from the past?

Without a thought
Straight on with what is gone—
Scattered jewels, melting ice,
Beneath the clouds a silver road

This is no make-believe.
What does the moment know,
Rising on a bending wind
The shapeless moment before us
Is taking shape

Sky. Mirror. Black earth.
Time, a songbird
Those love songs were long,
I’m going back to old

Hello Mountain

Every morning when the forest wakes
The canopy goes for a walk
Hailing the sun, courting the wind,
Discussing fruit and weather

The idle moss turns to velvet.
Branches make signs.
Who says there is no time?
The only thing we are given is Time

Chattering life, high above
Babel of tree dwellers.
For a seed falling so far down
Time is a given—to rise again,
A foothold
For the hunger of a weed,
Poison, colour, survival root
And the grass that never sleeps

Shooting up to meet the gaze of the mountain
How are you, mountain?
Is everything alright
Is the earth growing old,
Birds flying away, trees falling.

Green mountain wearing a rain hat,
Are there caves and bats in your bosom,
Wedged in your folds a hum of voices
Celebrating the anniversaries of birth and time
Is a raindrop growing into a river,
A rock into a jewel?