Poems

If you do not come back (যদি তুমি ফিরে না আসো)

 

You will forget me, I can not even think of it.

Wiping me away from your heart

you will be

hanging out here and there, strolling in the corridor, looking at

your face in the mirror, curling your locks with fingers, observing

the endless path of a groove lost through the parting of your hairs, observing

the city of silver dazzling in your palm,

Wiping me away from your heart

you will be blossoming daffodils in the plateau of your existence

I can not stand the mere thought of it.

 

Whenever I think, you may forget me

Suddenly someday,

Like a forgotten novel you have

read long ago, fright

appears in front of me wearing a dreadfully dark robe,

And clogs my brain from corner to corner,

A wild horse wounds my chest with strikes after strikes of it’s hoofs,

And my woeful howls of pain after a time 

tiredly dwindles away swirling over me, like

the shouts of an astray wanderer evaporate in a wide empty desert.

 

I accept no farewell

I want you to come back

swimming through the ocean of remembrance and oblivion

waving the wind with your rushing gown, silencing every obscene shout

every gross dispute

Come back to me, come back

to my dreamy garret

blend with my beats.

 

My eyes are calling you like a fatigued bird in a drowsy noon– come to me,

My hands, like a grieving violin, calling you– come to me,

My lips, like a dry thirsty fountain, calling you– come back to me.

 

If you do not come back

Tagore’s every floral wreath of words

will disperse and will get lost to nothingness flapping harshly,

Sighing emptiness

will replace the spots of every painting in the art-galleries,

Every sculpture from every sculptor will turn back into lifeless stones,

Every Sitar, Sarod, Guitar, Violin 

will turn into useless pieces of wood dumped in an ignored corner.

 

If you do not come back,

Breasts of every cattle will dry out,

Every goose will loose their feathers,

Fishes will stop reproducing.

 

If you do not come back,

Not even a single penny will be deposited in the relief-fund,

No tin of baby food will contain milk-powders,

but crawling insects.

 

If you do not come back

Every painter in the world will totally forget

the divine grammar of mixing hues, every poets’ writing pad

will contain swarms of dead flies instead of verses.

 

If you do not come back

Every young girl of the land

will turn toothless and old within a blink,

Every young man will take sleeping pills

in a deadly dose or will hang themselves.

 

If you do not come back,

With teary eyes in dawn’s chilling wind, Nazrul

will confoundedly ferry newspapers from door to door.

 

If you do not come back,

Every river and lake of this moist earth will turn arid,

Every field of crops of this green fertile land

will turn into sand-dunes

Every tree will turn into fossils,

Every twitter into clay-birds.

603022