By deeper water, upon greener rock, I had pitched my tent <br />And washed away with care the colour of my scream <br />Your bone and stone ornaments dried on wet rock <br />And Night would spread its blue-black skin upon the water <br />Then, it wasn’t in this land I lived! <br />The animal hides you gave me to wrap around my waist <br />I laid beneath my head to sleep on the island sand <br />In the distance a whale released water through its nose, in the early morning sun <br />One by one all the corals emerged from the sea - <br />One day a wandering Marco Polo anchored his ship <br />One day Columbus too - <br />Who was first, who second, can you remember? - And once <br />On his way back from his long desolate exile <br />Crusoe, Robinson; he spent a couple of hours with us <br />Dined with us on long fish roasted in fire <br />Not a single bone in them - “excellent” he remarked <br />in dense creeper-covered forest, I noticed <br />the way the early morning sun flashed - while speaking <br />with you from beneath his nutbrown beard there flashed <br />such a smile - <br />Then, it wasn’t in this land I lived! <br /> <br />Tonight why do I recall that tent upon a rock <br />Why do those bone and feather ornaments sparkle in the dark? <br />Here where the butterflies are lightless and the minerals damp as a cold <br />From sleeping bodies warm vapour rises constantly <br />If I try to wash the wound of my scream, then <br />From the water there will rise a crimson smoke! <br /> <br />But running will not help! <br />I will fetch the rocks and warm them <br />Warm them and whet them <br />Soon their inert tips <br />Will sharpen and glisten <br /> <br /> And then <br />Do you remember one time in the dark how <br />A drunken bear pounced on you <br />And I with just such a sharp rock <br />Flattened him right there, in the sand? <br /> <br /> <br />[Translated from Bengali by Oindrila Mukherjee]<br /><br />Joy Goswami<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/poem-from-another-land/
