At the Bend

Sankha Ghosh

Today, it is not for me to speak,
yet, let me say:
Here I stand at the bend of the road,

before me
the long trunk shorn of its branches
cold and silent,

within the crevices of its ageing bark
hidden
the capitulations of many decades,

also, possibly,
the memories of having sheltered some,
the rise and the fall of the axe;

Then,
the sounds and prints of the many footsteps fading
towards the Ganga


leave me here,
age-wrecked, blind and
childless!




The original poem [pather baa.Nke* by sha~Nkha ghoshh*] appeared in the collection of poems under the title baabarer praarthanaa*, in 1976. The poems in this collection were written during 1974-76. The poet received the Sahitya Akademi Award for this book.

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)

Click here to send your feedback

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

©Parabaas 2011