Rabindranath: without you
Shahjahan Kabir
On the wings of white swans
We are floating,
Crossing a long distance … …
Only we have in our heart
Your eternal saying
“Not here, not here,
Somewhere, somewhere else”.
We are floating
On the eternal flow of time.
From a seed to a seedling,
From a seedling to a plant,
From a plant to a fruit … …
Always there is a welcome for the new,
That is the ever flowing tide of eternity!
With its touch
We have been made to float,
Leaving behind deep flavor of one soil
To the embrace of the grey horizon of the other.
We are moving with the speed of light
Passenger on a craft gone wild
Leaving always behind
All the savings of our life … …
The moist ‘anchal’ of our beloved.
The soft touch of the new born.
Taj Mahal remained cold
Flooded eternally
With the moonlight of the nights of the Jamuna!
All are illusions,
All are expressions of the ‘hungry stone’
All are false.
All are attachments – untrue attachments,
All are green shadows of water-hyacinths
Wavering eternally on fresh rainy water … …
All are wavering … …
With the sentiments of an uncertain journey!
On the wings of swans
We are floating … …
From the illusion of one void
To the deep illusion of the other.
When shall we be still?
When will this journey
Come to a halt … Where?
If so, ever … …
All the pains of our past
Slowly get accumulated.
They are like the ‘stars of the night’
Always remain hidden.
‘In the depth of light of the day.’
Rabindranath! You are always in our lives,
In the resonance of every atom
Of our footsteps,
Without you
Perhaps we had very little to gain!
” anchal – the end piece of sari worn by Bengali women
