Welcome Farewell

Grieve no more–

As for Notan

The poet has amassed much grief.

Let me plant a tree of fog

In the earth of dreams;

There too, no flowers, nor fruits bloom

But in poetic symposiums of death

Three damsels recite qasidas to the poet.

In the blind certainty of that listening,

I have seen Partha drink shots of life

With the intensity of his shooting an arrow.

In such promiscuous times, but for a hateful anklet-

What ornament can adorn the feet of a damsel?

Oh poet, your baul-heart is drenched

In a dissolving rain.

And see how scorched we become

By the cursed sun of survival,

Sitting amidst the ocean-like samsara 

On the bank of the river Jamuna.

Pias Majid is a poet, essayist, and writer.

Liton Chakraborty Mithun is a faculty member at the Department of English Language-Literature, Central Women's University.