১২ (বলাকা )

Verse 12

That you will give

That I shall acquire from you

Forms the shape of my thoughts

All day.

In joy and pain

I extend my open palms to you, again.

Thinking that you will give

More, and more, and more

Without reprieve.

And you did.

Every moment, every bit by bit.

Your giving rushed down

In a sudden flood of grace.

I took some, wasted some

Gave some away

I wore your indulgence

Like a delicate, delicious web all day.

I played with the gems

Of your generosity.

Leaving them behind

In the playhouse of my

Wasteful laze.

Yet you gave and gave

Until

My treasure-chest overflowed

With drops of eternity.

Today, I feel finally

The burden of your giving,

Your goodness.

Today I want to tear myself

Away from my pleading regress.

As I hovered about your door

In unending hopes of gift

My expectations overflowed

My soul was constantly adrift

As I craved for more and more

And more. But today

The dead-weight of my debt has given way

To my desire to give

Myself

My desire to be taken by you,

By you.

When will you take me, hold my hand

Demolish my cup of thirst,

Of empty greed?

When will you put off my burning lamp

Of nights I could not sleep

Laying in wait, for more.

When will you take

My garland of flowers

For you, to keep?

Lead me to your skies of endless taintless lights, diffused, deep?

২৫ (বলাকা )

Verse Twenty-Five

Spring came in happy ruckus
With her clamorous cortege
Whereby,
Filling my yard with laughter and flowers
The forest with new leaves,
Painting deep scarlet kisses across the sky.

Quietly paid me a visit today
A very different spring.
Sat in the corner of my room
Pondering.

Surveyed the endless sky, spring did
Her gaze fixed to that spot, where
All the green faints and fades into blue
Becoming one under her deep, curious stare.

অনাবশ্যক

In Vain

In the lonely kaash woods by the creek

I asked her, "Who might you be?

With your lamp, protected from the wind

Under your cautious drapery?

My home remains unlighted, bleak

I could use your lamp, if you can

Leave it here for me." With a stare

She refuses, for she has a plan,

To float her little lamp in the river

This, I find quite pointless

I notice her lamp slowly drift

Away in the water, in darkness.

Another dusk descends. I stop her

To ask, whether perhaps, tonight

As her home is so brightly lit

She may part with her little lamplight.

She is still for a moment. Dark eyes

Stare at me, as she says

"But this... is for the dark skies

To keep a little corner ablaze."

I stare up at space and I see

How her little lamp burns, pointlessly.

The night of the new moon returns

I make yet another request

To her, as she walks slowly by

Clutching her lamp to her chest.

"My home remains unlit tonight

Give me your light, kind princess!"

In the darkness, she lifts her dark eyes

"This one is a tribute," she says.

A tribute to the autumn fete of lights.

Yet again, I remain a witness

To her light, burning among countless others

In effulgent, vain endlessness.

আঠারো

Eighteenth Poem

(For Mr. Charuchandra Bhattacharya, in devoted friendship).

Do we ever desire end of abjection?

Grief gratifies us, brings us pride.

That our deepest distress won't embody the eternal

Is discomforting

Denting our dignity in pain.

Life expends saved bits of being

Scattering existence on the trails of forever time

The wheels of time flattening, fading

Traces of deepest despair.

Deaths of our dearest

Demanding memory, whispering, "remember always."

Life's demands are unaccounted however

Clamoring, closing in on all directions.

In the crowd of now

Past's needs could be imperceptible,

Now and then

Words rise to the surface of disappearing pain

Dignity of sorrow takes pride in privation

Tells off life's emissaries, refuses admission

Fields of consciousness rife with fascinating fertility

With sullen pain, entrenched in the middle

Fortified, deserted, in silent unyielding mutiny

Tallying death and dying in mute indignation.

Self-defeated, but defiant

Unable, to bury the mind

To let go of a deep fetish

Fixated on desolation.

Much like the desire to rule, possess, be known

Deeper still, the desire

To command dark, undisturbed realms of pain.

রোগশয্যায় (৩)

I Sit Alone

I sit alone here
By the trail of many journeys.
Them, that rowed in the skiff of songs at dawn
At the frenzied harbor of life
Swaying with lights and shades
Disappear at the approach of dusk.
Turning slowly into shadows.
Eclipsing softly.
Today, they are crowding around
The threshold of my delirious dreams
Nameless, songless maladies
Like a one-stringed lute with a lost string
Lost in hopeless search.
I sit alone here
Counting the moments
Quietly, like counting prayer beads
Spread across every niche
Of this darkness.

রোগশয্যায় (১৪)

In this little firmament of my infirmary

Like a dry dead driftwood hiding in the creek-fork

Stumbling in, and breaking the swift currents

Currents of Creation

Step in to gather debris, busy, happy

Carefully crafting a little island

Of moss and plants and every sudden material

Floating at the banks in careless abandonment.

Today, in this little firmament of my infirmary

Currents of creation

Circulate

In deep, focused care

Of me.

Tender hands on my forehead

Gauging warmth.

Anxious wide awake eyes

Wondering about my insomnia.

Even the morning light

Tip toes in, careful not to wake me.

Plates of tasteless wholesomeness

Appealing against taste

Pleading nourishment

Tidying all the untidiness

My unwell unruly life generates.

Smoothing my sheets

Ready for yet another sleepless night of

Endless care

I am the driftwood that created this island.

Of whispered voices

Worried glances

Wavering, soft, touches.

The currents of my life are haltingly

Revolving within a world

Feverishly, far removed from the world outside.

The flash flood is near

That will someday set this little island adrift

Waves of exalted, unfettered. nursed-back life

Will set this little room free of care

Leaving behind a mist of matchless, emollient, memories.