I
NIRENDRA
NATH CHAKRAVARTY
I
can leave everything, but not the tree;
May
it remain
Straight
and simple, may the tree remain
In
my life,
May
it remain, remain ever wakeful.
I
can leave everything, but not the river;
May
it remain.
By
the side of the tree, may it remain
In
my life,
May
it remain, remain ever wakeful.
I
can leave everything, but not the boat;
May
it remain,
May
the boat remain upon the river, remain
In
my life,
May
it remain ever wakeful.
All
I can give up, not you, O my pole-star!
You
must remain–.
Tree
and river and boat, when all are swept away in the black darkness,
Even
then, do remain transfixed in the night sky.
UMA
DEVI
The
centre of this body is a sun
with
its seven-winged flames.
Burn
the strings of the body-the fire is pitiless,
he
does not know, if it is soft or hard, high or low a scale.
He
dissolves in the fiery heat the thin cord that
links
me to the earth.
In
the heavens of your heart
I
am a flying light, a flame bird.
The
pair of wings is loosened by the heat
The
body drunk with the black smoke of gold
is
sunk in a swoon
Both
lie out-stretched, the front veering upward.
The
wandering stars in the spaces are in flight,
in
flight-out of sight.
The
sun has absconded, the moon a handful of ashes.
Draining
life to a pale emptiness, a bunch of roses
blooms
in the crimson garden of the veins,
The
pupil of the eye is torn out, the tired eye-lashes
droop
down stilled.
Time
trembles with the rise and fall of the breast.
Life
with its wings of fire is a soaring light:
Your
heavens are a cloudless beauty
Love
and affection, memory and happiness
Are
now a cascade of gold-dust, as though
drifting
autumn leaves.
–Translated from the Bengali original
by
NOLINI KANTA GUPTA