Perambulator Poem by Pradip Saikia

I'm pushing you along
O two wheeler
The corpse of my father
From the last one of all my previous births
On your lap
Decorated with flowers
-Yellow
O two wheeler
You are moving along
Guided by the light of the burning torch
In the glass verandah
The sound of your uneven wheels
Echoes
The dark mirrors are shattered and falling down
Suddenly the white roosters
Have started crowing

My father has not yet woken up
Can we see the dawn from here
The water on the other side
The clenched fist of my father
Has loosened
His eyes have gone down the depths of the earthen well
A tiny fish in the tears accumulated in the eye
The last one in the procession of flutist
Was my father
Whose
Favourite tune
Emptiness

# Translated from Assamese to English by: Bibekananda Chowdhury