When You Will Get Back Home (Poet Dilwar, a respected one) / ABU KARIM

When you will get back home, there will be no more

Playful clouds in the sky.

Deep black scurf will cover all the green stars.

The hours of waiting will draw the curtain of sleep

on my  eyes heavy as mercury.

When you will get back home,

my  skin has already wrinkled loose.

The nipple that once would become erect

with a mere twang will turn numb

and lie on cold milk rice

as if a dead fly  

the milk-rice that is below in taste  even to a beggar.

When you will get back home,you will find

the children have fallen asleep

crying a lot.

Perhaps you’ve read in books that they can

walk,mumble,  giggle;

never have you matched those with your own experience.

When you will get back home you will be  in touch of a witch

with wrinkled skin beyond the century,

you will shudder in pain.

The ever green physical beauty of the young girl

will get crabbed and shrunken.

I’m sure once you will get back home,

But then there  will  be no more need to do so.

Dhaka: July 1, 1992

[ Translations by Dulal Al Mansur ]