Translated by Muhammad Nurul Huda
Somebody
left some vapour inside my heart
Some
aqua of art, --as dense as midnight
left
the secret surprise
left
the enchanted moonrise—
Today
they hover upon my chest
like the leaves of late spring,
today they play on a Mondira,
indifferent
as they’re in this afternoon.
Crooked
and lethargic like the oghran
today
this afternoon leaves over the tree tops,
the
greenness of the water of a hyacinth-pond,
The
unsoaked wings of the duck diving
under
water-shrubs;
unshaken
and unperturbed and shoreless
it’s
an afternoon hanging from the cornices of distant houses.
Yet
it knows somebody coming
somebody
across a long long way
somebody
with something in his cold firm hand
somebody
with something beyond the grip of
any of us
The
women knows the moment of birth
prior
to her giving birth to a child,
knows
the definite arrival of man.
And
this afternoon knows
Why
I tremble awaiting an arrival
at this fag end of the day,
Perhaps
he has come closer to my bosom,
Perhaps
my sighs are warm on his back ;
Perhaps
it’s no time for his arrival at all ;
as
I fall deeply asleep at some nights
his
cold shaggy hands surveys my bosom.
This
afternoon, this fag end of the day,
unworried
under the dull-faced sun,
suddenly
presses my dirty split hand-
do
I know it to be my auspicious moment;
But
this afternoon knows it,
but
this after knows everything.
Translated by Muhammad Nurul Huda
1.
Mandira : a kind of small cup shaped cymbals.
2.
Oghran : the eighth month of the Bengali year.
RubY
Rahman
(1946--)