Sign Inventory, week 6

"Main Temple Street, Puri" by Jayanta Mahapatra, Contemporary World Poetry, p. 416

• The last stanza begins with an odd contraction, "And," that is casually different from the rest of the work.
• There is a movement from people, "Children," to an abstraction of the "sky" at the end of the piece.
• There is a contrast between "unending rhythm," which ends line 4, and "crutches of silence" which ends line 11.
• There is a movement from sound, "laughing," to "silence."
• Illness and deformity is emphasized throughout with: "cripples," "mongrels," "shorn scalp," "Injuries," and "crutches."
• The sky is given absolute power, "inviolable authority."
• "The temple" is personified as "point"ing along with the sky "on its crutches," and "Injuries drowsy."
• There is a lack of care that is stressed with: "Nobody ever bothers" and "nothing seems to go away from sight."
• The work is lethargic with the lack of movement and "the heat."
• "Children" are "brown as earth" and the "dusty street" is "the colour of shorn scalp." Similes compare the ground to humans as vice versa.