I heard myself speak today It made me want to Cut out my tongue.

But I bloom like a flower:/ Soft and strong.

Autumn transcended Winter– / Crispness in the air fell pale.

rise, rise—now evening dies: sun-born in valleys with burning olive trees—where  women like me plod one day at a time,

For once, can love look like a Sunday morning; filled with warmth, calmness and motionless?

wounded limbs heal faster, / than a wounded conscience

What happens when your desire Lies in being alive?

Lacerating the unfortified,/ Picking at the flesh for bad blood to find

Bury your feet where its green And when the air is thin you will see 

She’s as real as my meandering/ As tangible as tinkering.

Once a homebody, nestled in its embrace. Now lost, a wanderer in a boundless space.

Seven feet of mud swept water, /Bodies under rubble.

She doesn’t need an alarm For the last hour of the night.

Her Kohl-rimmed eyes, dangling earrings,/ The chiffon scarf, the satin silk shirt

It said, my body was no longer needed. / “This is the age of freedom. Let me go, and explore.”

Self-confidence shaken, some shattered memories in their side bags

We’re still alive/ but they wanted to die a natural death

Being a woman comes to me naturally If not me, then who? I was never asked to be one I was never asked to cook

This is a translation by Md. Abu Zafor of Bimal Guha’s “Kalo Biral” from the collection ‘E Kon Matal Nritya' (first published in 2022).

Time to set sail for a new cruise, oh dear voyager Sindbad!