If I Were a Wild Swan

 

‘If I Were a Wild Swan’ is a translated poem, with a slight change from the original one (Ami Jodi Hotam) by Jibanananda Das, the pioneer of the modern Bengali poetry, the uncrowned maestro of mind-stunning metaphors: my first love like millions of Bengali readers who like to read a couple of lines from a poem, sometimes in a lonely leisure on a rainy day or on a moon blanched night or in a winter morn or anytime anywhere with a hot cup of tea or without. His works have got an undeniable impact on readers or poetry lovers, avid or nonchalant, who can neither feel nor deny that there is something to be indulged in, there is definitely something to be lost with an outpour felt deep inside in the life on the other end of the reality.

Ami Jodi Hotam (If I Were) was translated into English by the poet himself and was published in the 1945 anthology of Modern Bengali Poems. However; I have never had the opportunity to go through that version of the poem. But, I did dare, may be for my love for the poet and for the imagery, to try my own version with a little change as I didn’t feel like bringing along another swan to be shot down…

 

If I Were a Wild Swan

If I were a wild swan

In a quiet nest,

Deep inside a swamp bush,

Close to a wheat field,

By a calm, rainy river

By the end of a horizon;

 

On such a night of spring

With the moon rising above the cedar woods,

I would glide along the silvery crops in the sky,

Leaving behind the lure of the maddening smell

Of warm water of the marshes-

 

With my feathers feeling the touches of your wings;

My wings in the beats of your veins-

A million stars glowing the deep blue sky,

Like the golden flowers flaming the wheat field;

With the March Moon looking like a golden egg

In the green furry nest of maple grove.

The sound of a sudden gunshot:

My diagonal fall,

With the joy of ecstatic piston on my back,

And the songs of the north wind in my tone!

 

May be the second gunshot:

My stunned silence,

My peace.

There wouldn’t be the fractions of death anymore

Like the life we are dragging on…

There wouldn’t be any burden of despairs

With the unfulfillment of our little hopes,

There wouldn’t be any darkness, either;

If I were a wild swan,

By a calm, rainy river

By the end of a horizon,

Close to a wheat field…

 

 

© Atique R.

Dreamversation

 

Can I borrow a couple of your moments,

Before the moon picks up its beaming glow?

Can I ask you something,

Before my winging words lose the courage

And find the floating mist in a hiding flow?

Though, a lot of things I’m dying to know,

But, a few or a couple will be just fine:

You’re so busy, and I’m in such a withering time.

All you need is to respond in just ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Sounds so simple, aint’t it? I guess so.

 

I’ve got so many questions getting spiralled,

Squeezing my heart: at least I feel that way.

Do you ever feel choked,

With thousands of questions in a boiling bay;

Tangled and the words severed off their wings,

Before trying to fly out off their death?

And that makes me feel just out of breath…

But, can you please tell me

Before the white dove

Sails past all the seas of lives;

Before a wandering soul

Walks past all his miles..?

 

Suppose, there is no oxygen issue;

But still, you are feeling suffocated for someone,

Someone keeping a deafening silence.

Have you ever experienced anything like this?

Anything that way, in a camouflaged patience?

Do you ever feel

Kind of taking in a breath of peace,

With a long sigh of relief,

Just after seeing someone online-

Like discovering an island

After a series of storm in a troubled sea-

After hours of impatient attempts

To feel someone’s virtual presence:

And still without texting any single word,

Sharing just nothing,

Nothing but a bunch of frozen sighs?

Unreachable, indeed, but there is still something.

 

Do you ever check your WhatsApp account

Just to see the login status of someone else?

Do you ever feel the craziness,

Making you feel like a bubble

With the burden of an unfathomable emptiness?

Have you ever found your feelings got stuck

In a one-way ride to the moon?

I don’t know if you ever feel the way I feel;

For anyone, ever in your dimensional zone?    

 

Have you ever been in a conversation

With someone, without uttering a single word,

For a soul laden with passion,

Breathing so hard to find a catharsis?

Do you believe anything like telekinesis:

Like sending the words from soul to the seas?

I wish I could send you my wingless words too;

Not the feelings, just words,

Millions of words,

As my feelings can hardly be painted with letters.

 

Have you ever talked to someone

Entirely in your imagination?

I call it dreamversation,

That I keep doing in my subconscious mind,

Or may be in my unconsciousness too,

With you: several times a day and at night

In my lonely leisure or whatever,

With the moon rising high

Or hiding somewhere,

With the monsoon rain

Drenching the soul of the earth

And of mine,

Or without it:

 

Without ever thinking the Meghbalika

I see in the canvas of my heart

Belongs to a parallel world,

And I’m just nowhere,

With all my dreamversations

Landing in a nothing-sphere.

 

 

©Atique R.