Beyond Land and Time

Who Would Leave this Land

(Rupôshi Bāngla 30: Ei dāngā chєrє)

Translated by Joe Winter

Who would leave this land and seek beauty

                                                   on the ways of the world?−

tales of a different time are recalled

                                                    in dry leaves of the banyan

that lie scattered all down the meadow-paths in lonely Aghran−

who’d  make off for foreign parts, and miss these?

                                                      − the basmati-paddy-field

I’ll not quit to go to Malabar − nor to Ooty high-hilled,

not at all − that land of palm-trees I’ll not look upon

that nod their head to the ocean’s song −

                           nor where cardamom-flower and cinnamon

bring a dream to Baruni’s heart, of sitting

                                                  with plait free, loose-spilled,

shall I go: in the faded white dust Ashwattha-leaves

                                                                         fallen astray−

when there’s no one about at all, not even a bird, this noonday,

only a great stretch of grass spread over

                                                      an earth-and-gravel floor,

the odd morose sparrow here and there to pick over twigs,

                                                                          bits of straw,

fallen in the faded white dust Ashwattha-leaves

                                                                 lie here and stay….

it is why this life does not leave, it goes nowhere away

                                                                        from this way.