Rabiul Husain

 

 

Rape and Remembrance

 

 

The health-stone is in the ring of finger,

The cotton-buttons are in the silvery shirt,

The jug of water is fall of liquid glass,

The grave is born after the body stops and

Slides in to the deep deep earth.

 

There is no one except man

Who is so mournful and deaf like a river.

 

The abstract art of cloud is in the sky,

The  trees and the little deer are helpless

In waterfall.

The dew-turban of durba-grass

Kindless the evening –lamp.

In the early morning,

The family of fishes

Lies in the deep pond, and 

The cruel and dumb Nature stands

Outside the room, independent.

 

The proud-semen and tenderness of man

Are on the mountain-top’

Their foreheads touch its snow-white blanket,

Up and above, spread a net of air

Or a ladder along the road of life

To a reach the emptiness.

 

The world keeps everything recorded in---

Architecture, Book, Fossil

Only it does not keep the signature, whatsoever,

Of Rape and Remembrance in the

Living bodies of Women and River.

 

 

                                       Translated by the poet.

    

 

Rabiul Husain (1943--) Poet. Poetry : Sundari Fona (1984), Kothay Amar Navojan (1985), Kendradhonite Beje Othe (1996), Research : Bangladesher Sthapatya Sangskriti (1985).