Four Exile Poems
Exile Poems
Translated from the Bengali by Arunava Sinha
32
During the days I was on the run,
when the sun set,
all hope seemed to be lost.
A bolt of lightning felt like someone
shining a torch on the window-pane.
The breeze seemed to be on patrol all night.
I even suspected the mist of conspiracy.
The winds that blew in from the north
felt like spies on a mission.
I'd check whether anyone from the moon
had dropped anchor to descend to earth.
Ah, all those days that flowed
through my sorrows and anxieties!
In my country at this moment
another writer is experiencing them too.
Don't be afraid, my friend.
33
The man who used to love walking
alone in a solitary room for several months —
who hid in his chest the scents
wafting in on the breeze from the forest.
Hoots of owls, the rain drumming on the roof,
the deathly silence of winter afternoons,
fallen leaves filling the pond,
a monitor lizard scurrying away.
Where did all of this disappear?
Three riders who came on a motorcycle…
The swish of the blade and the sound of gunfire
oppress and punish men in the guise of religion.
34
Pushed into exile by force,
I'm gasping for breath now.
The air in my lungs holds no smell of the earth.
The moon is tethered to the sky with a grey ribbon.
The light sculpture on the roof of the Mattress Factory
is like the North Star. Even after I lost my way,
it guided me home from Pennsylvania Avenue one night.
Back home, I go to sleep.
For a long time now my dreams have been fragmented.
All of us expect long, pleasurable dreams, after all.
35
Even when the April wind here is cold
I can still tell
the wind in my homeland is searing and hot.
No matter how far I live
from the rivers on whose banks
I have listened to their silt-washed stories.
To me they are like
my twin brothers and sisters.
I know how deep their roots are planted.
Although the extremists kill the remaining trees
around the water-lily sculpture in Dhaka,
As long as the moon
hangs in the sky.
No clause in the Constitution could save them.
36
The railroad runs through West Park.
I walk along it on a summer afternoon.
A laden wind blows.
Pebbles of memory rattle in my chest.
My heart has been shaped
with photographs of mangled human faces,
I bear the suffering of people like the seasons.
