Kamal Chowdhury

 

Foot Prints

 

 

Witness to each other, we walked through

                                                         glowing sands

far from human abode

Dhaleswari, in your wide field, barren and

                                                             desert-like,

in your sandy shoal drenched in fog

our foot-prints spread like a procession.

That was 8 p.m. of biting cold

On our muffler, pull-over, pantaloon and shoes,

We walked as we ignored its paws

Our hair and eyes drenched in fog

Our feet sinking in white sand

we walked and walked on

Sometime in cyclic order, sometime on middle finger

In a few minutes thousands of our foot-prints

                                                    awoke in glowing sands

 

Dhaleswari, they awoke in your physique, barren

                                                             and waterless.

 

Dhaleswari, would you never know who left

                                                all these footprints ?

O fullmoon, O winter

O biting cold wind drenched in wintry fog

Be witness to us all

If ever asks Dhaleswari, tell her

Three sentiment bound young men loved to leave

                                                       all these footprints.

 

We walked in childlike ecstasy, in an all-pervading

                                                                          manner

 

We collected handful of sands and sprinkled them

We know, once this waterless barren river

                                                       will flow to its brim

like the lyrics of Jibanannda

Dhaleswari, the memory of your contact,

inundated, once will grow into full Bangladesh

 

Three young men shall go floating

throughout the whole of Bengal.

 

                                                Translated by Muhammad Nurul Huda

 

Kamal Chowdhury (1957—).

Poet. Poetry : Michhiler Saman Bayosi (1981), Ei Path Ei Kolahal (1993), Esechhi Nijer Bhore (1995), Ei Megh Bidyute Bhora (1997).