Sankha Ghosh

In this hovering soundless solitude,
In the abundant lonesome winds of this dark evening,
You turn up
your white pale face
cold as a cloud, lightless like the moon
towards the enormous sky.

From a far-away land I tremble
with the unbearable agony of desire---
Bunched around your white stone of a face
thin wisps of hair tremble
in the dark wind
        like so many fingers extended
                in pain, in prayer.

The corner of the sky grows heavy
with clustering clouds,---
Flashes of longing tear through
with repeated ferocity,
Tidal waves of love seeking to burst forth
in tremendous ecstasy, agitate
the unbounded distances within the darkness,
the sombre complexion of a reflective unmoving land.
You turn up your face
cold as a cloud, lightless like the moon,
your breasts are like undulations of a land
that has wept itself to weary stillness
you stretch out your anxious wasted arms--- long-expectant,
prayer-tired, towards that furious enormous sky-----

Around them cluster darkness,
wisps of hair,
a thousand musical notes,
in the boundless lonesome winds.

Slowly creation reaches readiness:
      As if in one terrible blessedly-sweet moment,
the clouds of its desire break forth
in bolts of unbearable thunder piercing the middle
of your outspread breast, eager, upturned,
towards the total bliss of union---
Then,banishing all rubbish
from this wet dishevelled tumbledown world
transpires
      a beautiful cool caressing
                  morning.

Translated by Nandini Gupta [nandinI gupta*] - Nandini Gupta is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands, working on ... (more)

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* To learn more about the ITRANS script for Bengali, click here.