Puberty

Nilim Kumar
Translated from original Asomiya by
Dibyajyoti Sarma

In great secrecy within her bosom
Blooms a red hibiscus

When the driblets of petals
Falls on the ground
Weeping, she informs her mother

For seven days and seven nights she does not show
Her face to sun, moon and stars

For seven days and seven nights she drinks succus of soil
Near her head on an earthen bed waits a clay lamp
Over a pot-full of rice

Women arrive, arrive buzzing females
Chanting, they fill the pots with flowing water
Hiding behind the water ferns the small fishes
Listen to the distaff hymns

Within a holy enclosure a banana sapling converts into a bridegroom
With sesame seed and turmeric the women bathe both


Carrying in each hands pot full of flowing water

She adorns a garland of beads
On the sapling’s neck
Two gust of winds of two hands the banana sapling
Graces her hair

Wearing a red dress she touches the soil
Corn seeds fill her lap
Weeps alone the very bottom of her heart

That night entered some fireflies
Into her heart

Someone takes away
And buries the banana sapling behind the house

Enwrapping wind on the infant leaves
I was a banana sapling
On her puberty