Beyond Land and Time

Before Death

(Mrittyur Āgє)

Translated by Azfar Hussain

We have strolled in a field of straw lonely

range in the Poush evening, and have watched

a meek river-girl sprinkle the flowers

of fog on the fringe of a field; oh! They,

they all look like country-girls of the past.

We have seen the sun-plant and the Dhundul

lit with fireflies in the dark. At the end

of the field that has no crops, stands the moon

motionless; no harvest does it desire to reap;

We have loved the long winter night

in the dark, have listened to the music

of flapping wings across a thatched roof,

on a magic night; the smell of an ancient

owl: where then has it been lost in the dark?

We have felt the winter night’s form and beauty

replete with the deep delight of winging across

the field; the twigs of the Aswattha on which

the cranes cry, and we have felt these solitary spells of life;

We have watched a wild goose vanish,

away from the gun-shot of a strange hunter,

into the meek blue of the horizon; we have

laid our hands with love on the sheaves of paddy,

have home-come with hopes like evening crowflights;

the smell of a child’s mouth, grass,

sunlight, kingfishers, stars, skies—

they all have left their signs sprinkled

in our year-long wanderings.

We have watched green leaves turn yellow

in the autumnal darkness, beside the window

of the Hijal; the light and the Bulbuli

together have played; a mouse under the spell

of a winter night smears its silken body

with the dusts of rice; the waves fall down

in the grey smell of rice like the flashes

of beauty in the eyes of a solitary fish;

a pond-side duck in the dusky dark smells

the fragrance of sleep—the touch of a woman’s

hand has taken it away;

The minaret-like cloud beckons a golden kite

to its window; beneath those rattan plants

the sparrow’s eggs have shaded off into a blue,

the river kisses its bank time and again

with the soft smell of its water; the shadow

of a thatched roof falls on the courtyard

of a moonlit night deep and dense;

the breeze smells crickets—in the green wind

of the summer-field, the dense juice in desires

deep trickles down from the depth of a bluish apple;

We have watched red fruits lie strewn

under a huge Banyan tree; the crowd

in the solitary field see their faces ensteeped in the water,

all the blue skies go on to seek the bluer ones;

we have watched from way to way the bedimmed eyes

cast their shadows on the earth; we have watched

the evening tracking down the rows

of areca-nuts everyday; every day the dawn

descends like the green ease of the sheaves of paddy.

We have known the women of the earth

who have told the tales of our rivers,

edging close to us in the dark after many months

seasons and years; we have felt there is yet another

light along the path, inside meadows and fields;

there is the grey of a dusk in her body;

the light lies still, slipping out of a vision;

the Kankabati of this earth goes there floating,

touching the body of the lurid incense;

Before we die, what more do we need to know?

Didn’t we know that against all our many-splendoured

desires stands but the grizzled phantom of death

like a wall? There was once in this world

a dream; there was once gold which enjoyed peace

answerless; as if a magic-woman satisfied

her needs. What else would we want to know?

When the sunlight goes off, didn’t we listen

to birds twittering? Didn’t we see a crow

soaring across the field’s fog!