The Holy

Sankha Ghosh

Here I lie at the crematorium. Tell them
Such rowdiness does not befit
The building of a pyre.

They, at my head, my feet, beside me,
Are all your serfs.
Tell them.

Tell them to let the infinite step on my chest
And let down her calf-length hair,
The stars blazing in her crown. Let them flee

And, from the unnamed skull-strung necklace
Let drip, let the holy drip,
Cold,
    on my cold face,
       cold breast.





The original poem [dharma* by sha~Nkha ghoshh*] appeared in the collection of poems under the title mUrkha ba.Do, saamaajik naY**,published in 1974. The poems in this collection were written during 1972-73.

Translated by Nandini Gupta [nandinI gupta*] - Nandini Gupta is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands, working on ... (more)

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* To learn more about the ITRANS script for Bengali, click here.


©Parabaas 2011