Kaisul Huq

 

My Business

 

 

To make words meaningful is my business.

By adding words to words I build sentences,

A strange and mysterious garden of the sentences

                             turn out to be soldiers,

Sometimes they become forlorn wandering lovers.

 

At other times they grow in to

                                    shining faces of a procession ;

They sparkle in slogans and posters ;

                                    it is a wonderful art gallery

Born of the artist’s deepest devotion.

 

This garden of sentences is all my asset.

I lay it out, dress it up,

          design and decorate it just as I please.

Some pictures are after my heart,

                     some are not.

There lie about many many incomplete ones.

 

Joy and sadness lie cheek by jowl

Close to each other in the depth of sound.

Words inside sentences ---

Words, words,

Till the end only words remain,

At the beginning of everything

                      and at the very end.

 

The rise and fall of man,

Has tumultuous emotions.

His firm feelings of solidarity,

All man’s thoughts and ideas –

All, all

Are built of the strange

Bottomless empire of dream laden words.

 

This garden of words, and the words within words

That are going on working ceaselessly

In the deep recesses of the human heart ;

In to demand my right of admittance,

For to make words meaningful

                              is my only business.

 

                                          Translated by : Kabir Chowdhury

 

Kaisul Huq (1933--)

Poet. Poetry : Shabder Sanko (1974).