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Water Bird (Oliullah tried his whole life to become a poet) Khaled Hossain Translated from Bangla by Shabnam Nadiya
This poem of mine will be written in the coming Baishakhi full moon when the sounds of falling water shall tremble gently outside in the nishindhya bush. Fireflies shall float on waves of water like your unfamiliar childhood face and I will recall the upward-seeking rotation of the wheels of a black taxicab speeding its way to Bholta as if the spaceward journey after the end of earthly travels was natural. Because once you had desired to slip your head into the cloud-clusters and take it to the country of the stars. Meaning that you wanted to be a poet. So you removed yourself from the dreary and uncertain constrictions of everyday life You followed a jatra troupe through all the geography of summer and winter, across the roads and fields of the lowlands only so you could recognize love deeply with all its veins and arteries -- as if you wanted to see a rainbow bridge beneath running waters, the domicile of a few clouds who had descended from the seventh heaven. When we were learning Kung Fu and Karate on sandy fields when we were blue like sudden silence in the sorrow of Debdas following the sorrow of Buro Angla, you were standing at the FDC gate absorbing the deeper life-lessons of dead soldiers. A flying distance in your eyes – the blue laughter of the moon You had told me about the secret blossoms of extinct trees that were Heavier with mystery than the saga of life. And the tender, complex tale of losing everything through one’s own stupidity. You said that when you visited remote southern villages you recovered the images and sensations of your aching childhood, in the haystacks, dog-fur, wooden benches and tin glasses you could touch the tender fingers of your true mother. So you rode the deep launches of the night to reach an uncertain destination and you felt as if your mother was stroking your head sending you into sleep as fine as moonlight. Now it seems as if in your eyelids and in the depths of your mind a vast thirst had hidden. So such an intimate sleep arrived suddenly in your eyes, in your heart as melancholy as sorrow. When I saw you I remembered the tales of the Bede tribe going Dahuk hunting in the rainy season, of your own free will you flowed your life into two opposite channels. I remember, last December you told me as you were swathed in a mantle of fog that you were writing uncounted poems each day with your inner blood or your tears. With all the wonder in my heart I have gazed at your stern face. In your eyes the light of distant stars were ablaze. I have heard that you returned to your ancestral home from the confused bed of the wrong hospital and the hesitant white cloth that shrouded you entirely the red alpana painted on it were continually spreading – even onto the grey earth. As if you were a child of the earth, child of dust It seems in the next Baishakhi full moon, your unwritten story will float like a firefly in the fields of moonlight.
Published January 20, 2007
The original poem [jaler paakhi*] is from a collection titled Shikar Jatrar Ayojon first published in 2005 by Sahitya Bikash, Bangladesh. Translated by Shabnam Nadiya. Shabnam Nadiya is a writer, poet and translator. Her work has appeared in the anthologies ... (more). Illustrated by Arindam Chakraborty. Arindam is based in Kolkata, India. Click here to send your feedback * To
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