Span of Life / Abu Karim

Some trees can live for five hundred years

 in any congenial environment. Those trees

are not found in this delta. They are available

beside the rivers in Amazon and in deep forests

of Africa.

Banana trees live only for one year.

In our country there are many banyan trees and

peepul trees that have been alive for more than

one hundred years. Trees  die after one year,

one hundred years or five hundred years.

The tortoise lives long. How long does a hare live?

How long does a whale live?

Trees are not supposed to live long on the soil of Bangladesh

Because it is dusty. Our rivers have frequent tide and ebb.

Tide brings silt with it and at ebb some of the silt

is left behind. With the attraction of the sea, rivers

as if expanding two hands, fall down on the sea

during the rainy season, and in winter the two banks

of the emaciated rivers become smaller. Sometimes rivers

die in some disastrous environment or under the oppression

of human beings.

In our country babies are born without proper care.

In every winter, in every summer people in endless

 sexual  desire give birth to innumerable babies. Some of them

die at birth; the others live with the energy of mothers’ milk.

And the rest also sometimes get the span of a century.

The span of life of all people is uncertain like whirlwinds.

In the past man’s aim was to take bath in the Ganges before

death, but now his aim is to visit Mecca before death.

Nobody knows when the doom’s day will come;

people  are going on breeding in hundreds and thousands.

People of the world expect the span of life higher.

The life span of Japanese on an average is

one hundred years. Their old ones out of monotony

of longevity become tired and kill themselves.

Observing this long way of life,

young Japanese people are getting married late.

Having the curse of short span of life, we are

advancing to old age quickly. We offend those

among us who are stronger in many ways so that

they cannot live long, or we kill them

lest our average span of life should be longer.

29 January 2010

 ''আয়ু'' কবিতার অনুবাদ

[Translated by Dulal Al Monsur]