Humanity!!
Humanity! You are so much injured!
So much battered!
Your shattered body is crawling
At places in Palestine and Israel
I can see your injured chest
carrying an arrow
outflowing red red blood
submerging the Gaza Valley.
I can hear your death-groan
In the cry of shell-hit babies
In the cry of men and women
under the missile rubbles!
I can read your angry look
Your silent curse is towards Hamas
Towards Israel
And towards the USA– the so
called
conscience of the world.
Petals of a Bud
Still a bud, yet to bloom, covering its red red petals
You pluck it off and took it to your chamber
You began to molest it, tore off the tissues
With a lot of sadistic pleasure.
Ah! the unbloomed petals
Smeared with blood!
The petals are carried away
I can see the images of a mortuary.
A Photograph
(“Ekti Photograph” from the poetical work Ek Phota Kemon Anal, 1986 by Shamsur Rahman. Translated by Md. Abu Zafor)
Do
come in, please! Come in!
And
what’s up?
You’re
fine, sure! How about the kids?
After
a small talk–
Pointing
at the still photograph on the white wall
I
said to my questioning guest,
“This
is my youngest son who is no more,
Like
a piece of stone
He
was drowned in our village pond.
About
three years from now, at a crow-cawing grisma[1]
noon.”
How
easily had I narrated this!
My
throat did not tremble a bit
No
sigh heaved up ripping my heart
Eyes
did not moisten with tears.
I
am startled to hear my own voice.
What
indifference! how cold!
Three
years from now– only three years–
Once
how I weaved a deep sorrow!
Meanwhile,
which malevolence has turned
My
mourning-river into a dreary char[2]
so fast?
As
the guest has left, I stood again
Before
the photograph’s curious eyes
With
a waning grief
From
inside the frame, my son keeps gazing without a wink
His
gaze, devoid of any anger or abhiman[3].
[1]
Grisma is the hottest season in Bangladesh.
[2] char in Bangladesh is the landmasses formed through
the sedimentation of huge amount of sand, silt and clay over time carried by
big rivers.
[3] This Bangla
word has hardly any equivalence in English. It is sort of feeling like ‘a
silent protest of anger’.
Great is that Man
(Dhanya Sei Purush” from Shamsur Rahman’s work Abiram Jalbhrami, 1986. The Bengali poem is written about the man who contextually refers to Sheikh Mujubur Rahman, Father of our Nation)
Great is that man – who emerges from the deep water
of a river –
At the moment the sun is rising.
Walks down the green carpet of the dale–
Teeming with butterflies.
Great is that man– who emerges
from an autumnal beel
Flying myriad-coloured birds.
Great is that man–who, after a famine, rushes out
from a harrowed land
Dreaming of crops.
Blessed are we, sure!
We see that you still come from a distant horizon
And we anxiously wait for you
Like the thirsty deer in hot summer noon
Looking for water.
Piercing your bosom blood-red jaba has bloomed like Pride
And we stare at those flowers.
Our eyes want not to wink
Our traumatic guilt-ridden heads droop down.
Look, one by one, all are treading the wrong path–
A sheer downfall!
Like disco dancers they have stated dancing at
Manisha’s Minar
Keeping their conscience into oblivion.
Trustworthiness is now making hidden-holes
For the good and well-wishers.
Facts are falling apart like potters’ broken earthen
pots.
The flatterers’ lips are so fluent,
Profusely producing words, days and nights.
Look, some fruit tree is loaded with makal fruits.
Love and affection are drying up
Like sun-burnt grasses
Look, today, there is no difference between crows
and cuckoos.
Under countless tricks and excuses
The tricksters are embellishing the autocrat’s head
with crown.
Look, none of the head is able to rise
Even a little higher than your knee
By no means none could exceed that height.
Losing you we were like evening shadows–
Slowly melting into darkness.
Our days got shrouded with grief.
Losing you, in days of crisis,
We were mourning sitting in our dunghills.
Our tears made the sky grief-stricken
But you have transformed that grief into life’s hymn
Because we know that you are more living than the
living.
Great is that man, on whose name shimmers the sun
For ever, Sraban’s rain, like music, pours down on
this name
Winds never allow dusts gather on this name.
Great is that man on whose name the
moonbeam-cranes
Spread their wings.
Great is that man on whose name flutters our Freedom
– like the flag.
Great is that man on whose name
Echoes ecstasy of our Freedom Fighters.
