Small Towns and Rivers

 

Mamang Dai (born 1957) 

Is a poet novelist journalist  and former civil servant from Itanagar arunachal pradesh who writes in English as well as adi language she is also an active radio and TV journalist covering news programmers and interviews for all India radio and doordarshan itanagar she was a programme officer  with world wide fund for nature and worked with biodiversity hotspots conservation programme she has received padmashree award in 2011 and sahitya  akademi award in 2017 Mamang Dai is a  strong voice has the fragrance of her land and her people. 

The poem small Town and Rivers is taken from the collection of the poems the river poems published in 2004 The poem describes a  landscape and nature where river is a dominant phenomenon Through the concepts like river has a soul and river knows immortality of water the poet makes us aware of  the lively nature around her hometown pasighat and the enter nity of the natural elements she finds that even life and death are transient the poem is based on the belive of the trouble people from the north east that the soul of the beloved ones always continue to dwell in the natural elements around so she remembers death. When she sees the towns the towns she implies  have prospered when nature has been destroyed point has expressed anxiety  at the development in the small Towns .

         Small Towns and Rivers 

 Small Towns always remind me of death 

My hometown lies calmly amidst the trees

It is always the same 

in summar or winter 

With the dust flying 

Or the wind howling down the gorge 

Just the other day someone died 

In the dreadful silence we wept 

Looking at the sad wreath of tube roses

Life and death  life and death 

Only the rituals are permanent.

The rivers has a soul 

In the summer it cuts through  the land 

Like a torrent of grief sometimes 

Sometimes I think  it holds its breath 

Seeking a  land of fish and stars 

The rivers has a soul 

It knows stretching past the town 

From the first drop of rain to dry earth 

And mist on the mountaintops 

The river knows 

 The immortality of water 

A shrine of happy  pictures 

marks the days of childhood 

Small towns grow with anxiety 

For the future  

The  dead are placed pointing west 

When the soul rises 

It will walk into the golden east 

Into the house of the sum 

 

In the cool bamboo 

Restored in sunlight 

Life matters like this 

In small towns by the rivers 

We all want to walk with the gods.

                                          -Mamang Dai