For the Hero I have lost before Spring

Ronid Chingangbam *

Delhi,
It was the beginning of 2008
End of February
We were preparing a story
Recollecting our History
to tell, to dance, to sing
upon the stage.
It was the story of the Torch
We didn't know the Torch was your soul
Never we thought the stage was your body
Never we learn the words were your last cries

Later in Kangleipak:
The spring popped up from your grave
The mountains saluted your death.
The peasants paraded to the fields..

But my sand clock has stopped
As so many faces of yours in my walls popped out
As I see you always inside the room
Upon the Mountains, Into the rivers,
As I hear you in my own cries...

How am I supposed to learn
Not to remember the words of the story?
How should i find another beginning
Leaving all that behind?

Still we often mourn together
Remembering the Man who burnt himself alive.
Yes! we often sighed together
reading the news from Homeland.

O Writer! O Singer!
Where have you kept the story
Of the Old man who tried to smoke
Without a light?

Did you ever tell me the end of the story?
What had happened to the songs
which called out the peasants
To the battlefield?

I suppose the old man at last smokes
without a light and stop the running river
I suppose the story ends
With the Rainbow color flag waving in the sky.
I suppose the peasants wash the rust
Of their sickles with blood.

See you in again in Autumn
And let's laugh forever......