#27

Some relationships are bad, worth 
celebrating only when ended. By 
bringing a pastry to the party of 
your life. Enough with the benefit
of doubt. People are often unkind, 
ulterior, and the kindest thing to do 
would be to do to yourself: leave. 
Say no. Leave toxic environments. 
Honour your heart like you would 
have honoured theirs. Don’t put it 
out to be gambled away or wait to 
see where the chips may fall, if at 
all. Bet on the people who would 
bet on you, know that everything 
that opposes you isn’t carving you. 
Sometimes it is not a chisel hammer 
in your back, it is a sharpened knife. 

Beware of Dog

Once chased by three pet dogs
an Alsatian, a Dachshund and a Pomeranian

all around my teacher's sprawling bungalow
I nailed a sign on my heart that

read “Beware of Dog.” I was just 13

and life thereafter has shown me

many dogs, many dog people

much love and many ways of loving

yet when I met Kalu and Angel

I was intimidated by Angel’s

aggressive – “this is my house

and my duty to bark, when you, a guest

show up at this gate” – but I opened the gate

and walked in, after which, announcements

completed, Angel lost interest in me and left

but Kalu, who never uttered a sound

followed me along the tree-lined path to the house

politely passed on good wishes for the night

through eyes that talked only as much as needed

welcomed me and my violin every morning

into the garden, sat by me, snoozed through

Shankarabharanam, Saveri, Kambodhi, Behag, Kapi

offering zero judgement or review.

If Kalu said anything it may have sounded like

“I am safe with you and you with me”

I may never meet Kalu and Angel again but my heart says

it may soon be fine to remove the sign

‘Beware of Dog.’ 

Note: Thank you for the prompt to write about a pet (yours or someone else's), ADG!

Reflections

Catching yourself in the mirror
Do you sometimes wonder
If you are an outsider
Peering in through the window
A stranger to the impossibly
Tender memories of childhood
When the light of innocence
Made the ordinary transcendent
Every small act of rebellion
A portal to enchantment
While today you’re staggered
By the weight of tedium
And your body revolts
Against the passing of time.

 

Nameless Days

Sometimes all it takes is

The brave outline of a single leaf
To ravish you and pierce
Through the fuzzy shape
Of slow nameless days
So you set down the phone
Abandon the grocery list
Peel off your grey shirt while
You dig through the cupboard
Find the old favourite yellow
With a hole in its shoulder
That you hope no one sees
As you drive through streets
Which meander like thoughts
And you turn up the volume
To sing along with Cohen
Whose low gravelly voice
Invokes the many cracks
That let the light in.

THE MAPLES OF GUILT

Vesper. Song. White-breasted. House.

sparrows on every branch but one can't 

have enough of them. It's a strange time, 

doors shut, windows always open, a time 

when memory is a liability and touch, a curse.

Birds arrive on branches as they do every 

spring, but who ever paid attention before? 

The tree did its thing, the birds did theirs, we ran,

cars chasing careers, the red, green and yellow 

of traffic lights our only signals. Sunrise and sunset 

were for the ancients. We had moved on.

And then the doors shut on us. We retreated, 

switched off the TV and kept looking at birds. 

We were in love. And like those newly in love,

we looked only at our lover. Not at the Japanese 

maple leaves that wheezed with a geriatric resignation. 

Not even at the branches the birds perched on. The 

branches that remained bare even after all their 

neighbouring maple branches danced 

with envy-inducing shiny greenness.

 

We were besotted with fleeting romance.

A cardinal's blushing red, the sky on a blue 

jay's breast, the yellow-paint dipped goldfinch, 

a blackbird's boot-polished skin. The maples 

of guilt would sting us only once the birds flew 

off to warmer climes. Of ignoring the abiding, 

missing silent tears, neglecting life that didn't 

breathe but made breathing possible. 

  

Writing History

 

History is blind. It will not remember soulful food, folded laundry, and ship-shape wardrobes. It does not idolize effective housekeeping, caregiving, loving, or nurturing. Heroes do not condescend to do domestic chores. They are silently executed by the faceless, voiceless, unseen threads of a genealogy. History enshrines achievements; the task of nourishing bodies and souls does not quite cut it.

History will sing glories only if you charge into a battlefield with a child braced behind you. 

History is happy to be silent if you don't jostle for a space. Pick up your pens to tell your tales. Make subjects of breaking backaches and bleeding breasts. Make anthems of your humdrum lives. Decisions about breakfasts, lunches, and dinners may not change the world. Yet, no wars were ever fought on empty stomachs.

So, write your history. Shape it. Let your pen give voice to the house that became a home under your care.

Bengali Translation of Hilda Doolittle's poem: The Pool

The Pool

Are you alive?
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you—banded one?

পুকুর

তুমি কি জীবিত?

আমি ছুঁয়ে দেখি তোমায়।

সমুদ্রের মাছের মত তুমি কেঁপে কেঁপে ওঠ।

আমার জাল দিয়ে তোমায় ঢেকে দিই।

তুমি কি বলো তো - ডোরাকাটা রূপ?

link to the original poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/13056/the-pool

#26

(after Raymond Carver)

February, and I am caught with the letters

I’ve written to the man I fancy, no replies,

but I’ve not given up on unrequited love. 

April, and I’m missing potato pancakes, 

the softness of the sun, outdoor seating 

at restaurants, and the weight of my razai.

June, and I have re-dreamt my dreams, 

I want to be a witch, growing herbs in my 

verandah, collecting them on full moon. 

August, and I have painted the walls blue,

bought new plants, swished around the 

neighbourhood fixing everyone’s taps. 

December, and I have been all the women 

I wanted to be, changed myself this sun 

cycle, now resolving to be myself again.

এইটা আমার একটা ছবি (translation from Margaret Atwood, and it has echoes with Plath's 'Mirror' translated by Shubhro earlier)

এইটা আমার একটা ছবি 

অনেকদিন আগে তোলা হয়েছিল 

তাই একনজরে মনে হয় 

ভেস্তে যাওয়া একটা 

প্রিন্ট: আবছা রেখা আর ছাইছাই বিন্দু 

কাগজের সঙ্গে মিশে মিশে গেছে;

তারপর, বেশ পর্যবেক্ষণ করলে 

দেখবে নৈঋত কোণে 

একটা ডালের মতো : গাছের অংশ 

(শাল বা তমাল), বেরিয়ে আসছে 

আর ঈশান কোণে, যেখানে হালকা একটা 

ঢাল, সেইখানে একটি ছোট্ট বাড়ি। 

তার পেছনে একটা দীঘি,

আর তার-ও পেছনে কিছু টিলা।

(ছবিটা যেদিন তোলা হয়েছিল  

তার আগের দিন-ই আমি ডুবে গেছিলাম।

আমি ওই দীঘির মধ্যে,মাঝখানে  

ওই ছবিটার, প্রথম পরতের ঠিক নীচে 

বোঝা মুশকিল ঠিক কোথায়,

বা নির্দিষ্টভাবে বলতে পারা  

যে আমি কতটা বড়ো বা ছোটো:

আলোর উপর জলের ফলাফল  

হলো বিকৃতি। 

কিন্তু যদি একমনে দেখো 

বেশ কিছুক্ষণ,

দেখতে ঠিক-ই পাবে আমায়।)

This is a photograph of me

It was taken some time ago.

At first it seems to be

a smeared

print: blurred lines and grey flecks

blended with the paper;

then, as you scan

it, you see in the left-hand corner

a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree

(balsam or spruce) emerging

and, to the right, halfway up

what ought to be a gentle

slope, a small frame house.

In the background there is a lake,

and beyond that, some low hills.

(The photograph was taken

the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the center

of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where

precisely, or to say

how large or small I am:

the effect of water

on light is a distortion

but if you look long enough,

eventually

you will be able to see me.)

In Search of Sanctity

Sacred is a seldom used word

In a progress worshipping world
The monuments to mammon we crown
Reveal how deeply we have drowned
The mystical. Every trace of magic
Is buried in transgressions so tragic
The more from nature we’ve separated
Everything hallowed lies excavated
Each attempt to stop falling apart
Must impel us to fill our hearts
With reverence.

For Sreedhar

You were my best friend
For my first eight years
Swapping jokes and giggling
Running together to the park
Playing pranks on Amma
(Really troubled her, didn’t we?)
Telling stories in the dark after
Appa switched off the light
(Ghost stories were the best)
You were my best friend
And you were my brother
Older by a whole year as
You never failed to remind me
I thought you always would be
In my life and we’d grow up
Together. Even when hospital
Kept you away sometimes
I thought you’d come home
With new tricks to teach me
I didn’t know you’d go away
Forever. Teaching me only
That the lessons of grief
Are sometimes learnt early.

34 street

Late night on the subway

two drunks folded neatly by the wall

happy

in their own way.

In the corner seat a woman 

rolling her ankles to 

ease the day’s weight.

The man beside her

doing the same

without noticing.

Two boys

college aged

speaking in the tired pitch

of day end.

In this small corner of the city

everybody is dreaming of home. 

THE THREE OF US

                            (1)

অমিয় , অমিয়া /Noun/ Nectar ; ambrosia ; food of gods ; emancipation

Before the two of us, my mother

and me, you came. At fifteen,

that age when girls begin toying

with the idea of womanhood, you

became a bride. Along with a heap

of responsibilities, your in-laws

gave you a new name. Amiya. 

Nectar. Ambrosia, the sweet food 

of gods and birds. Amiya, also 

emancipation. A prescient naming, 

if there ever could be one. With the 

honey dripping off the pages of your 

words and the seeds of freedom 

you innately sowed in your 

daughter and granddaugther.

                          (2)

বিজয়া /Noun/ Goddess Durga ; day of the immersion ceremony of goddess Durga

Your parents' firstborn, the answer to 

ceaseless prayers, years of tears, 

you were called Bijoya. The victorious, 

the unvanquished. You were Durga, too,

and you were her immersion. When the

world turned upside down on you, its

whirlwind drowning you, you learned

to stand on your head and create a

whole new universe in reverse motion. 

Riding on your wings, delicate, 

never-absent, we, your brood survived 

and found our skies. If that's not 

goddess work, I don't know what is.

                        (3)

ভাস্বর/ভাস্বতী / adjective/ Shining ; radiant ; splendid.

I landed at a turbulent time, a moment

so fragile, it could shatter with a wisp

of breath. My grandmother named me 

after a mythical lake. Not satisfied, 

she turned to an intelligence beyond 

and that's how, I'm told, I got my name. 

Bhaswati. Shining, radiant, splendid. 

I would worship and burn through a million 

suns, my skin ashen, my heart corroded, 

until arriving at the spot I always was. 

A crevice of glimmer hiding in plain sight. 

To abide. In non-blinding light.

Belated Ballad for Earth Day

 

The road races by, tar black and
Glowing marked. The blue Spring
Late evening sky arranges it’s
Serried whites, approximating
Stillness, an airy suspension
Of colossal mountain weight.
If horizons spoke they would need
To shout to be heard over the
Rowdy ringing of wheels. If highways
Listened they might wonder at
The stony longing that steals
Into the separating land. How it
Blurs the sight and smudges
The desire for the extended hand.

Lord Puckington's Dinner Song

Lord Puckington's claws are sharp and long.

Lord Puckington sings his song.

Lord Puckington senses the coming repast.

Lord Puckington sings his song

Lord Puckington sleeps on a suitcase with wheels

Lord Puckington demands his meals 

Lord Puckington is the director and we are the cast. 

Lord Puckington demands his meals. 

Lord Puckington is perched on my knee. 

Lord Puckington looks at me

Lord Puckington's claws hold him steady and fast. 

Lord Puckington looks at me. 

Spare me, Lord Puckington, your song and your scream. 

But when you nuzzle my sideburns so, it does make me beam. 

History

History is not a river;

History is an ocean with many currents and waves

Surging softly in directions infinite,

Sometimes swelling,

Sometimes ebbing.

And in the ocean are born many fish

Who live and die without knowing the shore.

But, if they swam far enough, 

Perhaps, one day, they might.

History is not an arrow;

History is an explosion in a crowded room:

Senseless in its violence,

A concentration of many disparate elements,

Suddenly spreading through once peaceful people

And tearing them apart.

History is not a bird that flies;

History is a train with many compartments

That you can travel through, back and forth,

And even though each bogey is always in a different place,

The people in them are always the same,

Which is not the same as the same as you

Or even each other.

History is something that is made and forgotten.

It is something to be celebrated, but sometimes rotten.

History is a story we tell ourselves.

More often, a story that is told to us.

Beware of history as you should beware of family:

There are dangers to being proud of what was never chosen by us. 

5 mins

Five minutes is far too short a time

To write one sentence, let alone a rhyme.

Perhaps I should be generous and kind

And give one more minute for peace of mind.

But time moves fast, and I should let them go

At 2:25 so that they know

That I can sometimes stick to time,

If nothing else, at least in rhyme. 

Someone is staring at me

I look at the floor 

And become overly interested in an empty sheet 

I can feel it burning a hole into the back of my neck.

I decide not to look

I click my heel nervously

And scribble some fanciful nonsense.

I decide not to meet their eyes but

They bore into me like gimlets

My temples throb and my veins pop 

Cursing peripheral vision

I grit my teeth and persevere

My neck begins to ache and I give up

Why go through pain when

It can be solved by the flick of an eyeball

Our eyes meet for a brief second 

And we look away.

Giant Indian Squirrel

Twirling a bushy tail and all

leaping  big leaps

that seem like flying, 

living in the upper canopies

of trees that spread

her mate is right,

he who can build many a nest

on slender branches.

she uses one at a time

a breeding home,

the rest decoy homes

to trick a serpant eagle or an owl

you wonder why this trickster 

Giant Indian squirrel

isn't in a super hero film.

Bengali Translation of Annette Marie Hyder's poem: Weather Report: Foggy, Rainy, Dark

Weather Report: Foggy, Rainy, Dark

It’s true that fog wrapped the buildings in its embrace
sweated the windows and lapped the necks
of every person in the city who was out and about today.

I’m sorry about that―but you made me hot.
And the darkness of the day? I closed my eyes
and the whole city closed its eyes with me.
But the rain was not my fault.

আবহাওয়ার খবর: কুয়াশাচ্ছন্, বৃষ্টি আর অন্ধকার

এটা সত্যি যে কুয়াশা তার আলিঙ্গনে ঘিরেছিল বাড়িগুলোকে

জানলায় ঘমা এঁকেছিল আর এ শহরের প্রত্যেকের ঘাড় পেঁচিয়ে

ঘুরেছিল, যারা আজ বাইরে ঘোরাঘুরি করতে বেরিয়েছিল তাদের।

আমার অন্যায় হয়েছে - কিন্তু তুমি আমায় উত্তপ্ত করেছ।

আর দিনের বেলার অন্ধকার? আমি চোখ বুজেছিলুম

আর গোটা শহর আমার সঙ্গে চোখ বুজে রয়েছিল।

কিন্তু বৃষ্টিপাতের দোষ সে আমার নয়।

link to the original poem: https://www.thrushpoetryjournal.com/may-2012-annette-marie-hyder.html

#25

It is a dream within a dream, me being in love with you, collecting small ice figurines inside our shared freezer, yearly cleaning of the old cassettes, missing each other so much it feels like the ice figurines are stuck inside our chest, saying so, being vulnerable to the point of laughing with snorts over a bizarre video on the tube, falling over not caring how silly we look, how silly we feel, how silly we walk out of the shower, wrapping left over chocolates from work in a small tissue paper and bringing it home, it melting completely while it is being brought home, the dainty dishes we stack one over the other like a challenge, what will break first the dishes or small portions of our hearts, because loving mindfully is knowing that even in love hearts break, catching crashing waves and falling jamuns and frangipanis and our wills as they descend to the ground from time to time, being in love with you is a way of being, in all the ways of being, it is a dream within a dream. 

No Words

Words were supposed to be my currency
is it any wonder that I am mostly broke
and broken? Words, in my life for years
have been on strike. They refuse to work
for me anymore. They are simply absent
or brazenly neglectful of their duties towards
meaning making. Blatantly rebellious or
worse, they’re derisive – the roughest, meanest
word appearing at just the moment that demands
the softest, sweetest one. Words have the last laugh
on me, day in and day out. Having left my service they
sit in groups - smoking, chatting, taking great pleasure
in watching me struggle with blank screens and silence
that they know, oh so well, is not my element.
“Dear words, pray come back and let us
work together again,” is this what they wish
to hear? Or “Dear words, I accept defeat
you are supreme, I bow before you?” Or
“Dear words, I was wrong. I work for you
not you for me” – surely that would work?
Maybe, one day, I will find the right words
to woo back words – until then... 

Tethered

I’m waiting at the threshold
Hesitant to move
Not sure how to name
The fear that keeps me
Tethered to this spot
The sky outside is darkly
Ominous with clouds that
Rained in sheets last evening
Drowning petunias in their pots
The slickly shining roads with
Tangles of crawling traffic
Spell out warnings of delay;

The room behind me beckons
With its cosy armchair
And softly glowing lamps
While the kettle holds promise
Of another mug of tea
I turn around half tempted
Stopped by the ticking clock
I have known this all along
I must leave this very minute
If I’m not to miss the flight
That’ll wing me to the horizon
Where adventure awaits.

Still I hesitate
It isn’t anything new
I have waited here before
Unsure of what to do.