The Suffering Streams

Pain of the blue mountains

Flows day and night 

In the rushing waters of the Dooars rivers!

How they deceive the eyes

The evergreen tea estates

Under these lively skies

The degradation of humanity 

Freely continues!

The maiden is raped without

Any qualms of conscience

On the tables of the estate office 

They play ping-pong with illiterate workers!

Those girls sitting beside roads

To sell rice beer (handia)

Eventually lose their dignity

The land sheds silent tears on unfortunate virginity!

At home her father is coughing

Spitting bloody sputum

Who must decide to keep

remedies in the hospital

 that heal?

Xavier Bage

Tuesday, 24/08/1993

• 9:30 A.M.

I am Teaching My Children a Song of Revolution

 

These poems were written in the years 1993 -1994 in Hindi. I am translating them into English for readers worldwide.

 

 

 

I am teaching my children

A song of magical modulation

Which will intensify with each passing day

Into a raging fire of revolution!

 

Those grass sticks on the riverside sand

Waver right and left, north and south

Crows on the blooming Maria* trees

Caw endlessly, ooze saliva on mouth!

 

If you can declare a dog lunatic

You can kill it without guilt

But who on earth is pure and sinless?

Every man is of flesh and bone built!

 

I’m filling a spark in every word

Even if I die before I am young

The song must remain alive

I have given my poetry a tongue!

 

I am transfusing in it the life of my blood

I am filling it with violent vibration

Though they were born serene and tender

I am teaching my children a song of revolution!

 

Maria flowers bloom in May. In local dialect they are called “bandarlauri”(monkey stick, because of their sticklike seed pods). I have christened them Maria flowers because they bloom in May, the month dedicated to Mary, Mother of Jesus.

 

Xavier Bage

Mon, 23 August 1993, 9:30 PM

The Prophet's Poems

In an imperishable almirah

Keep these rejected songs safely, you must

Who knows one day they may come out to lift up

 An oppressed man bloodied on the road

A fallen soul from the dust!

 

Be not dejected if no one was able to

sing them in the tune you composed

Be not depressed that so called wise men

Interpreted the words wrongly,

With undesired meanings imposed!

 

A poem sometimes is like the color of mehndi

It takes time to show color stark

O poet, Keep up creating selflessly

It may be a burning light to a traveler

Who needed ray of hope, a spark!

 

Those who like the hungry flies

Are sitting on the account book of sale

Cannot appreciate the colors of the butterflies

 The magical scent of the flowers , songs of the birds

For them there is just one color, pale!

 

Spoiled children on high chairs

Are laughing in derision

On prophets and poets

A generation will rise in future which

will bow to your prophetic creation!

 

Xavier Bage

17/08/1993

 

The Blue Hills Don't Utter a Word

Sucked dry by scary scarcity

Beaten hard by heartless hunger

Emaciated human bodies aboard

Among the tea bushes green

Busied themselves thin and lean

The blue hills don’t utter a word!

 

Her lungs infested with tubercle germs

Balamdina comes to the tea garden

She nourishes the plants with her blood

The ill equipped hospital in the estate

Failed to give her a healthier state

The blue hills don’t utter a word!

 

Among the machines of the factory

The Adivasi worker boy called Zenga

Lay bloodied, motionless, floored

Worked silently among the machines roaring

One machine played a cruel joke boring

The blue hills don’t utter a word!

 

His rights were snatched by the greedy

Though flags of various colors flutter

Near the factory iron - doored

Raising rainbow slogans in the air

Socialism, justice, rights, wages fair,

The blue hills don’t utter a word!

 

Tightly the mire holds all to their neck

The blue hills don’t utter a word!

 

Xavier Bage

Thursday,  19/8/1993