Roar, O Freedom
What shall I do with the spring
when I hear only the cuckoo moaning
and cannot see gorgeous flowers blossom?
What shall I do with the garden
where no birds ever pays a visit?
Oh, how rough and stony is this earth!
Skeletons of trees stand, row after row,
like so many desolate ghosts.
What shall I do with the love
that places on my head a crown of thorns
and hands out to me the cup of hemlock?
What purpose does the road serve
on which no one treads,
where vendors of coloured ice-cream
or waves of city-inundating processions
are never seen?
I had called you, dearest
when we started our journey
with our face turned to the rising sun.
When the back-pull of bourgeois charm
kept from your ears the soaring sound
of the people singing.
You are still prisoner under the claws
of a fierce eagle.
You cannot yet walk on a road
with the rainbow coloured carpet spread on it.
Oh, how tough it is to keep going
without you by my side!
A horrid monster comes, casting dark shadows
all around;
in a moment he crushes under his heels
the foundation of new civilization,
he hangs the full moon on the scaffold,
declares unlawful the blossoming
of the lotus and the rose.
He bans my poems, stanza by stanza,
quietly, without any fanfare,
he bans your breath,
he bans the fragrance of your hair.
By the bent body of the young girl
sitting on the lonely porch of old age,
waiting for the dawn of happy days.
By the long days and nights of Nelson Mandella
spent behind the bars.
By the martyrdom of the heroic youth
Noor Hossain,
O Freedom, raise your head like Titan,
give a sky-shattering shout,
tear off the chain around
your wrists.
Roar, Freedom, roar mightily!
[Translated by Kabir Chowdhury]
Asad’s Shirt
Like bunches of blood-red Oleander,
like flaming clouds at sunset,
Asad’s shirt flutters
in the gusty wind, in the limitless blue.
To the brother’s spotless shirt
his sister had sown
with the fine gold thread
of her heart’s desire.
Buttons which shone like stars;
how often had his ageing mother,
with such tender care,
hung that shirt out to dry
in her sunny courtyard.
Now that self-same shirt
has deserted the mother’s courtyard,
adorned by bright sunlight
and the soft shadow
cast by the pomegranate tree.
Now it flutters
on the city’s main street,
on top of the belching factory chimneys,
in every nook and corner
of the echoing avenues.
How it flutters
with no respite
in the sun-scorched stretches
of our parched hearts,
at every muster of conscious people
uniting in a common purpose.
Our weakness, our cowardice
the stain of our guilt and shame –
all are hidden from the public gaze.
By this pitiful piece of torn raiment
Asad’s shirt has become
our pulsating hearts’ rebellious banner.
[Translated from Asader shirt (Asad’s Shirt) by Syed Najmuddin Hashim]
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For a Few Lines of Poetry
I go to a tree and say:
Dear tree, can you give me a poem?
The tree says: If you can pierce
My bark and merge into my marrow,
Perhaps you will get a poem.
I whisper into the ears
Of a decaying wall:
Can you give me a poem?
The old wall whispers back
In its moss-thickened voice:
If you can grind yourself
Into the brick and mortar of my body,
Perhaps you will get a poem.
I beg an old man
Bending on my knees:
Please give me a poem.
Breaking the veil of silence,
The voice of wisdom says:
If you can carve the wrinkles
Of my face onto your own,
Perhaps you will get a poem.
Only for a few lines of poetry,
How long must I wait before this tree,
In front of the crumbling wall,
And the old man?
How long will I be bending on my knees?
[Translated from the Bengali by Syed Najmuddin Hashim]
Illustration : Rajat
