By: Mahadev Saha
Translated By: Zunayet Ahammed

I’ve left my handkerchief in a distant forest
to wipe tree’s grief.
Can you remember me, foolish deer?
Crazy girl, is there anybody that ever gets wet in this foreign land?
You had better go to sleep now.

Bakul, standing here, I notice your gloomy face
with naked eye
when gathers a lot of dew
in my black framed spectacles.
Dew is nothing but tears
of dejection
All desolateness is in oblivion.
Where would you find a museum for reading geology?
The train goes off,
Even then the handkerchief is left alone.

I pass through seven rooms in dream,
discern deep stillness in the fourth fragment of art,
and also cull heaps of
riches in slumber.
Yet two broken winged grasshoppers
fly around smoothly
This is called an original montra-
a different art.

Has the wood-cutter left behind his golden axe in this forest?
Who has seen this mystery here?
Ballerina loiters.
My handkerchief is beautiful.
Again, why do you hanker after this golden axe?
Leaving this aside
and being engrossed I write a letter to you, air.

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Original: Mahadev Saha: Saha was born on August 5,1944 in Dhangara, Sirajganj. He completed his primary and high school education in his village. For higher education, he went to Dhaka college, Bogra college and Rajshahi University. He started writing poetry at his early age. In contemporary Bangla literature, Mahadev Saha is one of the leading romantic poets, no doubt. He is also a poet of mystery and muted ambience. The main elements that we usually get by reading his poetry are solitude, love, yearning, the Liberation War, scenic beauty, poverty, secularism and equal rights. Shy by nature, he
becomes an outspoken liberal intellectual.

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Translation: Zunayet Ahammed, Assistant Professor of English, Northern University Bangladesh(NUB).