One night / Abu Karim

A Sunday afternoon I went to Shudha’s.

From their old house there would appear

some ancient flavor that stuck to my dark tan shawl.

Her mother offered me puffed rice in a bell metal plate

with an adoring approach.

After a while Shudha appeared with tea

and vibrating jingles of her glass bangles.

I can’t recollect anymore what I talked to her mother.

Looking up at the beams, Shudha reminded me, ‘‘Tea is getting cold.’’

There was a kite field beside their house.

A road was to be constructed there-several heaps of concrete.

While I was passing that path,

A couple of hippopotamus were drawing an empty cart.

They offered me, ‘‘ Mr. Amol, get on,

you've been ordered to be taken to hospital.’’

Jumping over a pile of stone, I climbed the topmost branch

of big peepul tree and shouted,

‘‘ shut up, after a while Shudha will come here!’’

Grumbling a little,

they went away drawing the empty cart

to the hospital through  the shadow of oleander trees.

But that afternoon Shudha did not come;

the sun set at the horizon;

Dews dropped down from the branches of the peepul tree;

a snake cried out frequently.

The couple of hippopotamus chased me here and there

for the whole night.

I tried all the trees in that field to hide.

At midnight after the summoning of stars,

I got down from the trees;

going to the hospital I became astonished with tears in my eye.

There were innumerable rows of oleander trees.

All the silent houses and tube wells of that little town by the road

looking at my sight wept out.

October 10, 1974

''একরাত্রি'' কবিতার অনুবাদ

[Translated by Dulal Al Monsur]