Hayat Saif

16 December 1942 - / Dhaka / Bangladesh

Throughout My Life

Throughout my life, in this manner
I search for her in many an empty uttering
This meaningless search-all through life
Yet my pride keeps swelling like a wasted cargo.

Suddenly this morning I heard that the ploughing ox
Of Muharam Mridha has been lost
Shrinking homestead of forefathers is also gone.
The city has beckoned his daughter away.
In the sterile city the lowly clerks' sad culture
Turns gray in rain, yet the solid edifices
Of the northern city areas

Keep enlarging. And in the incessant night,
In the watery south, a few faces-
Some sad feelings
Some empty coffers-

In the intimate villages of Bengal this life of deprivation
And the fate that awaits as the century comes to a close
Offer no end to the disappearance of dear places
Even the length of land
Needed for a grave

“Is this a losing game? O Rabindranath Tagore'
The poor loses his scarce savings, leprosy eats his bones
still the one who has nothing but lamentation all his life
Sees his face changing shape suddenly in the dreary mist
And gleams in the moonlight
He tears his hair, spits, and eats the grass of poetry.
The question of virginity is raised
Without the lifelong companion
Because at the end of the road there in no end to hunger,
And nothing to wear
And so dreams are sold at a price—
At the price of blood
And then these dreams drown in watery beaches.
Still, at the deepest hour of night, in the listless,
Stuffy, pregnant night
The one whom I meet live the life of an exile
In the interior of the house
Lives the whole life imagery,
Resonance and alliteration
Live on in her own home as an exile
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