• Parabaas
    Parabaas : পরবাস : বাংলা ভাষা, সাহিত্য ও সংস্কৃতি
  • পরবাস | Shakti Chattopadhyay | Poem
    Share  
  • I am a postman in the autumn forest : Shakti Chattopadhyay
    translated from Bengali to English by Nandini Gupta

    I have seen so many postmen wandering the forest in autumn
    Their yellow bags filled like sheep’s bellies sullied with grass.
    They keep finding new letters from ancient times
          I see these postmen of the forest in fall
    They endlessly peck, like solitary egrets, at fish
    Such is their impossible zeal – watchful and mystifying,
    They are not like our postmen at all
    Who lose our indulgent love letters all the time.
    We steadily draw apart from each other
    Hungry for letters we steadily move away
    We keep receiving numerous letters from afar
    We leave you and the next day we hand love-filled letters to the postmen.
    And thus, we keep moving away from people who are like us
    We reveal all our stupid frailties, intents
    We stand before mirrors but no longer see ourselves
    We keep floating in the loneliness of the veranda on an evening
    In this way, we take our clothes off and float away alone in moonlight actually.
    For so long, we have not embraced each other
    For so long we have not tasted human kisses
    For so long we have not heard men sing
    For so long we have not seen giddy kids
    We are drifting towards a forest older than forests
    Where leaves are immortal, blue imprints on rockfaces
    We are steadily drifting towards a land of ethereal connections—
    I have seen many postmen wandering around the forest in autumn
    Their yellow bags filled like sheep’s bellies sullied with grass
    I see them find new letters from ancient times
          Those postmen of the forest in fall
    Only the letters grow farther and farther apart
    I have never seen trees grow distant at all.

    The original poem 'Hemonter aronye ami postman' (হেমন্তের অরণ্যে আমি পোস্টম্যান) was the title poem of the book published first in March 1969 by Aruna Prakashoni (অরুণা প্রকাশনী), Kolkata.


    অলংকরণ (Artwork) : Ananya Das
  • মন্তব্য জমা দিন / Make a comment
  •   (?)
    • মন্তব্য পড়ুন / Read comments