Translation of Abdus Sattar`s five sonnets

Original: Poet Abdus Sattar
Translation: Gazi Abdulla-hel Baqui

Hem
Mind recalls the distant village Madhupur;  mangoes and jackfruits
—That joy and delight galore in the verdure woods;
The loud murmuring of bees in the bunches of Hijol flowers—
At the first golden dawn, the melting-sun pours the shoots of light.
The light wind is loaded with the fragrance of Bokul flowers
Light sensation of thrill is felt in the deepest point of heart;
Taking on the bosom countless babes of light like a mother
The green fields are lying across where the blue sky spreads above.

All day long, the profuse dust gets deposited in my ribs
As I dwell in a town. Inhaling a long breath in deep delight
I, riding on dream’s horseback, keep roaming about the woodland
Where the lush green illusion resides in the quiet home of life.
Flowers bloom, wind blows, butterflies wearing varied hues
Crowding along mind’s corner stretch their hems across Modhupur.

Arrow
The arrow that is hurled at me in the woody dwelling pains me often;
In the forest of the whole body, unbearable torment burns fire;
It spreads as swift as the venom of serpent,
Such surreptitious torture as if pants in the shade of stream every moment.
The pollen of dreams is shaken off from the stems of life
For her sharp breath; at a hot noon of Chittra
In the spreading velvet of hilly grass
The sun melting leaves dark spots in elegantly charming flowers.

The arrow that you hurl at me, I know the terrible heat of it
Creates fiery raving in the forest of your heart;
All the allotted time of all days and nights,
Being a burnt field of Joom, also burns in your mind.
What amount of pain you inflict, I know the burning time of it
Turning into an amount of pain of an arrow, pierces also your heart.

Canon
A silvery Marma girl putting on the beauty of eternal lustre
Has got into the blue water; the wet wind on light wings
Filling up into the bosom, the perfume of scented flowers,
Vanishes into the horizon in deep delusion; reaching the distant sky
Disperse its fragrance. Sometimes, blossoms of stars run down by flakes
Across the boundary of earth; within the bosom of solitary water,
There is a coloured and scented dream circle, very soft and light.

Ahead that Shanka River raises tuneful waves
Like songs producing purling resonance; in bright amazed elation
Delight is diffused all around in the rhythms of blooming body.
Here, I am thinking touching the panoramic hills with my eyes,
How—we are bound by unreal spell, yet at tomorrow dawn
We have to go to the distant cities in quest of livelihood.

The Land of Poetry
I have composed thousands of poems on hills, seas, women etc.
And have got them published in the form of many a book of poems;
All are imagination and pleasure. Now I have understood that
Those performances contain nothing valuable except well-trimmed garden.
'To youth the most inferior appears beautiful’— if this truth is accepted.
Then whatever comes to view— all appear colourful;
During the subsequent time of youth, the exchange of prudent glances
Evoking a different beauty, fills in the chamber of heart.

The beauty that bedecks the different hills, seas and women;
Now I do behold no more captivating beauty in those things.
Let every symbol be living one regarding these poems.
And let this land of poetry be turned into a picture of nature.
If it is right that all the elements of nature nourish the body of poetry,
Then why will not poetry be the real emblem of nature?

Forefathers
I did never land on any foreign country; I am living in my motherland,
How much I have seen and known of this land of mine.
There I failed to go in close contact with the people.
Will the travel to foreign lands dispel differences from mind?
Directed my own will, I have already started dwelling in forests.
Adjacent to the woodland, my days are gliding on,
If you nurture true desire to contact people true nature,
Then I advise to hail an exile in woods, except this nothing to say?

The image of simplicity as in the innocent children
That are brought up in the lap of forest-mothers forever.
Those forests do not exercise any trickery,
There how they look beautiful turning into an invaluable asset.
What benefits going to the foreign countries, where I do not know
My own country, and let me know quite well my forefathers at last.

(Gazi Abdulla-hel Baqui, a modern poet writing both in Bangla and English, has translated a good number of Bangla poems using most appropriate words and phrases. Dr. Baqui, a researcher and a university professor, has already published twenty eight books. He has also been published at home and abroad and thus awarded.)