রাতের গাড়ি (নবজাতক)

The Night Train

My spirits become the night train
Rushing ahead--
Sleep descends on the cars
The night is very quiet.

In endless darkness
Inky nonexistence
It lives beyond sleep
In nameless terrains.
In quick flashes of light
Something darts past
Into strange unfamiliarity
Towards invisible addresses, fast.
Rootless pilgrims from faraway lands
In a speechless night.
Can this distance be covered, I wonder.
Will the journey end all right?

Nameless driver
Some say, he is a machine
That is all. A soulless blind machine
Yet people sign away their lives to blindness
Quietly setting up berths to lean.
Uncertain this, they say, knowing fully well
That there's sureness in this speed, this spell.

Whistling by nameless things, people, places
That remain soaked in oblivion
Their pulses, breaths palpable.
Trust and paranoia mingle, masked
Trust rises, spreads
Under the night sky.
In dark relentlessness
The train speeds by.
Remaining inside the unconscious of sleep
Dreaming of distant dawns, dauntless, deep.