Beyond Land and Time

I Have Seen Bengal’s Face

(Rupôshi Bāngla 4: Bānglār Mukh Āmi Dєkhiyāchi)

Translated by Marian Maddern

I have seen Bangal’s face—therefore I no longer

go seeking earth’s beauty: waking and rising in the dark

I look at the fig-tree and see under the umbrella-like big leaves

the dawn swallows perched; gazing around I see

domes of leaves,

jam, bat, kanthal, hijal, aswattha leaves, silent.

On the clumps of cactus and zedoary their shadows fall.

Near Champa, from his boat, long ago, merchant Chand

saw thus the blue shadows of bat, hijal, tamal, Bengal’s

            incomparable beauty.

Behula also one day taking raft on the Gangur’s water

—when the waning moon’s light died on the river’s sandbanks—

saw beside the golden rice the numberless pipals, bat-trees, alas,

and heard the thrush’s soft song. One day arriving at the gods’ court,

when she danced like a forlorn wagtail before Indra’s assembly.

Bengal’s rivers, fields, flowers, wept like anklets at her feet.