Flame by a fire stick
That was an old story –
As that was a life long ago before this living:
I showed you the way to go
And came back in the darkness with silence,
You didn’t look back - even said nothing and ;-
My heart was full of emptiness.
Like a fire stick flamed in a moment - and burned-
On the dust of broken hulled ship at the port of my life ; where
Stillness turned in to a violet sea.
Golden hair of the cloud –
Faired the sky with the beauty of heliotrope.
It is my life now; so it is yours; Here it is the serenity
of human in this earth.
Days I loved you, like a lagoon I hold the place
Of a distant ocean in the darkness.
As I wanted – wanted so…. (With a deep breath)
Who felt no tear for a moment in Love !
Yet – I showed you the way to the stairs, and
Returned in the silence.
You won’t look back - even didn’t whisper -
And so, I asked nothing in that night.
Like a fire stick flamed in a moment - and burned -
On the dust of that broken ship:
I saw you to go toward the stairs,
And I came back with serenade in the darkness.
(Translated from Jibonanando Das’ poem ‘Jeno Ek Deshlai’)
(c) Rafiqul Anowar Russell
17 July 2009.
popular Bengali poet after Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam.
He is considered one of the precursors who introduced modernist poetry
to Bengali Literature, at a period when it was influenced by
Rabindranath Tagore's Romantic poetry.
During the later half of the twentieth century, Jibanananda Das
emerged as the most popular poet of modern Bengali literature.
Popularity apart, Jibanananda Das had distinguished himself as an
extraordinary poet presenting a paradigm hitherto unknown. It is a
fact that his unfamiliar poetic diction, choice of words and thematic
preferences took time to reach the heart of the readers. Tpwards the
later half of the twentieth century the poetry of Jibanananda has
become the defining essence of modernism in twentieth century Bengali
poetry.