"POVERTY", by Kazi Nazrul Islam

"POVERTY"
by- Kazi Nazrul Islam (click "here" to learn about Kazi)

O Poverty! You've made me great
You've bestowed upon me honor
like Christ was honored by his crown of thorns.
O Saint! You have given me
the irrepressible courage to speak freely.
formidable naked eyes, a razor-sharp tongue!
Your curse has turned my lyre into a sword!

O Arrogant Saint! Your intolerable flame
has tarnished my radiant gold,
it has prematurely dried up
my beauty, flavor, life.
Whenever I reach out with my lean cupped hands
to receive an offering of beauty,
O Hungry One, you step ahead
and drink it all up.
My idyllic dreamland
turns into a dreary desert.
My eyes cast showers of fire
on my own beauty!

My pain-laden, yellow-stemmed desires
want to blossom like fragrant shefali.
O Cruel, you chop them off like a woodcutter!
My heart begins to glitter
like dew drops of an autumn morning
from the dew-laden earth's crystalline drops of mercy.
O Sun, your scorching heat
dries up every drop of it!
I pale even under the earth's soothing shadow!
My dream of beauty and bliss shatters!
You pour liquid poison down my throat
and tell me: "What good is nectar?-
No burning, no intoxication , no madness!
O you weak mortal- it's not for you
to strive for immortality
in this world of sorrow!
You're like serpent- born of burning pain!
You're to stay inside thickets of thorns
weaving garlands of flowers.
I stamp on your forehead
this mark of pain!"

So I sing, weave garlands, with my throat burning,
my entire body stricken with serpent bites!....

Like the unforgiving Durbasa,
you go from door to door with your begging sack.
Sometimes you appear at night
before a happily married couple
telling them in your harsh voice "Listen,
you fools- this earth is not a pleasure garden!
There are wants, separation, sadness,
hurtful lovers, beds of thorns- taste those now!"
Instantly, the paradise is overtaken by grief,
the light goes off, and the deadly night
feels too long!

Starved, thin, you walk the street,
suddenly knitting yout eyebrows at some sight.
Your angry eyes cast arrows of fire- pestilence,
famine, cyclones strike the land!
Pleasure gardens burn, palaces explodes!
Your rule of law has only one sentence- death!

You don't transgress to modesty.
What you want is the blunt expression
of stark nakedness!
You don't even know what it is
to be hesitant or ashamed.
You raise high the heads that are bent low.
Those on their march of death
war ropes around their necks
with smiling faces!
With the fire of want burning inside them everyday,
you practice death-sacrifice
in diabolical pleasure!

You pull Lakshmi's crown down to dust.
Striking on Sarada's lyre-strings- what tune
do you want to pay, O Virtuoso?
All the tunes turn into cries of pain!

Yesterday at dawn I heard a shehnaj
playing a mournful tune.
As if the shehnaj player was weeping,
calling for someone to return home.
The tune was carrying with it
the hearts of the brides to their beloved
faraway waiting anxiously to return home.
Friends ask: "Why are you wiping your eyes,
your mascara?"...

I hear the shehnaj again this morning
playing the same mournful call.
The pale shefalikas are falling to the ground
like a smile on a widow's face- spreading
a soft fragrance in the air.
The butterflies are dancing restlessly
on their wings, intoxicated,
numbing the flowers with their kisses.
The bees' wings are yellow from pollen,
their bodies smeared with honey.

Suddenly, new life
seems to spring up everywhere!
Unconsciously, I sing a welcoming song of joy!
My eyes are filled with tears!
As if someone has tied a Rakhi
of my union with the earth!
The earth offers me a gift of flowers
with her dirt-covered hands- as if
she's my youngest darling daughter!
Then I startle!-
It's you, O Cruel Saint! You have appeared
in my child- crying at home, who hasn't had
anything to eat since yesterday
Hungry- you cry in my home everyday!

My darling child, I haven't been able
to feed you even a few drops of milk!
I have no right to be joyful.
Poverty is intolerable- yet
it appears in my home everyday
as my child and my wife!
Who will play the lyre?
Where will I see the happy smile of the Beautiful?
Where will I find the honey drink?
I've drunk, instead, a glass of dhutura poison-
flowing out as my tears!

Even today I hear the shehnaj again-
playing the same mournful tune.