Short Poems

The sea floods your canals, heaves at your gates:
inside you, our child learns the sail-maker's art.

For a moment she rested against me
Like a swallow half blown to the wall,
And they talk of Swinburne's women,
And the shepherdess meeting with Guido.
And the harlots of Baudelaire.

‘তূণীর' নামের ছেলে এবং ‘ছুটি' নামের মেয়ে
বাবা ও মা ধন্য হলো এদের কাছে পেয়ে।
স্বগ্ন দেখি- এরাই হবে যোগ্য নাগরিক
এদের প্রভায় জাগবে মানুষ, দীপ্ত চতুর্দিক।

She stares the livelong day;
Her wig of gold is stiff and cold
And cannot change to grey.

આપણા સામટા શબ્દ ઓછા પડે,
એમના મૌનને એટલા રંગ છે.

લો કરું કોશિશ ને ફાવે તો કહું,
શબ્દ જો એને સમાવે તો કહું !

She looks fine when she laughs.
She looks fine when she cries.
She looks fine when she shows anger.

Sayeed, which way you watch the Moon,
she will seem to be the Moon;
the Moon will never look ugly.

She walks in sadness
plucking petals from a flow'r
dreams dropped on the ground


(Previously published in Borders and Time, Mar 2000)

She tells her love while half asleep,
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
And put out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.

Dear friend, if there be any bond
Which friendship wins not much beyond—
So old and fond, since thought began—
It may be that whose subtle span
Binds Shakespear to an English man.

shaking the grave
my weeping voice
autumn wind