You Can’t Yet Leave, My Poet

Walk a few more paces, my poet

The journey can’t come to a stop, yet

I have, still, so much more to harvest.

The picture’s somehow murky, hazy

The book of poem stares, thoughtlessly

In my head the conniving litter of words loaf and idle. 

I have gloated much in self praise

“Oh boy, what poetry you birth!”

With hubris I have applauded the wordsmith in me, contentedly 

As if a rhyming wizard I am, indubitably.

Then, one listless afternoon, unwittingly

I happened to chance upon on a writing table, of a dear friend

Lying uncared, overlooked, “Muktijuddho Priyotoma Amar”

Thirty minutes later my ego had crumbled to dust.

Captivated by those mesmerising words

I discovered my soul

Thus ensnared I ceded to the real essence of freedom

In the realm of the rhyme.

It felt as if this is how I must have written

In some previous life

As if this is how I must have thought

In some previous life

The words that my inner Bangali can’t utter

The thoughts that the submissive minion in me can’t enunciate

You have imprisoned them all, ensnared them in these thirty-three verses.

I will but have to assimilate all of it my poet

Teach myself how to stimulate the old aching bones!

Teach myself how to invoke a torrent from the caves of the eyes!

I lack the whetted sharpness in my poems

Lack that rousing fire

I can’t fathom my poet 

With what finesses does one conjure up

The rainbow spectrum out of the red and the green

With what panache does one sprinkle on paper

The emanant earthy fragrance of the first shower of Bangladesh’s rain.

Oh, my poet! Show me…

Show me how to set free Vesuvius’ volcano 

From the tip of a chintzy five-taka ballpoint pen 

Show me the imperiousness of how to plant this land

In the bowels of our hearts

Show me how to glimpse the dance of the shadows

Of three million martyrs at the tip of the Shahid Minar.

You can’t yet leave, my poet

You have many more miles to walk

And, I have so much more to learn

Shamit Mahbub Shahabuddin 

27 June 2014