Let's Discard the Old and Welcome the New!

The Carcass

(Tisse)

Dagon Taryar

I’m a kind and caring person

Fond of feeling and friends

I like fragrance.

(The Front Cover of Dagon Taryar's Collected Poems)

A flower blooming in early summer

Beautiful and big with full fragrance

A new species of rainbow colours

Suddenly I have the idea in an instant

I like to plant a new tree grander.

(MMN and Dagon Taryar, 1989)

A Gantgaw sapling

Neither too big nor too small sizing

Moved it to grow at my place after slicing

I dug and I planted it at the end of rainy season.

(A Gantgaw Flower, Mesua ferrea)

To this old plant caricature

I sprinkled water and added manure

I was eager to let it bloom faster

But when rains ended and it changed in weather

Snow melted and sun shone over

Yellow flowers blossomed to greet the New Year;

(A Group of Gantgaw Trees, Mesua ferrea)

My old Gantgaw plant never altered

Its yellow branches became brittle and stood alone

With dry shriveled leaves not falling down or flown

The stem did not fall remaining erect on its own

Was it dead or still alive, hardly grown?

(Ngu or Cassia renigera; Also known as Indian Laburnum)

(Ngu, Indian Laburnum)

Children laughed aloud heartily

Their voices made strong soliloquy

They said ”It’s dead, grandpa already!”

(The Padauk Flowers, Pterocarpus indicus or macrocarpus)

Only then I knew certainly

My doubt disappeared definitely

Reason and rationale reappeared reassuringly

Neither blooming nor fragrant

Not beautiful but dead and dry plant

No longer useful and I cut it down with axe

Saying, “You go away now” dazed

Thus ending the sorry saga and amazed.

(L to R: Standing: Linyon Maung Maung, Sitting: Dagon Taryar,

Myint Myint Sein and Dr NOM)

Oh! I now know with relent

This time for the blooming fragrant

Beautiful plant, new seeds in supplant

I’ll grow again a new tree to its full extent!

(The Back Cover of Dagon Taryar's Collected Poems)

Dagon Taryar (1990)

In Yokeshin Taygabyar Magazine, October 1990

Translation Dr Maung Maung Nyo (15.04.2009)

Note: Gantgaw = Ceylon ironwood, Mesua ferrea

Yellow Flower = Padauk (Pterocarpus macrocarpus) and

Ngu (Caassia renigera)