“Tale of a Dead Soul” by Guna Moran

Before I used to write poems
A poet used to hum continually 
In my heart and soul

As I started penning
The poet has suddenly gone missing

How strange!
Till the poet had been there

There wasn’t any longing to become a poet
The day he went away
The longing to meet the poet again
Has made me insane
And an ailment to turn into poet 
Has been overwhelming me 
gradually 

Am searching for him at midnight 
Along the deserted streets
I continue the search even in my dreams
Expecting just to meet him
I have departed without bothering about
Time and other factors
To unknown places – to unknown people

Have filled countless pages
By drawing his portrait
In doing so regularly
People has christened me too with a name

That name has been gradually becoming popular

Still the sorrow of losing a poet
Cannot be forgotten by the new identity

At the death of a true poet
A new poet is perhaps born this way
That pens poems of losing the true one 
Lifelong
But the reciter-listener keeps reading and listening to that
Accepting as a poem 

Original language: Assamese.
Writer: Guna Moran
Translator: Bibekananda Choudhury