Beyond Land and Time

A Thousand Years at Play

(Hājār Bôcôr Shudhu Khelā Korє)

Translated by Humayun Azad & Robert Calder

For a thousand years we played, fireflies in the dark:

around us the pyramids—and the smell of coffins.

Moonlight is on the sand—here and there the shadows

of date-palms

are broken columns: Assyria is standing dead and pale.

Mummy smells in our bodies: all transactions of life

are at an end.

She said, ‘Do you remember?’—‘Banalata Sen, is it?’ I asked back.