Never do you have a grip on birth
Never do you have a grip on death
You control neither beginning nor end
Then are you
Without beginning or end
Without heels or head
As vast as eternity
An omnipresent seed
just
an infinite perception of illusory glory?
Before every beginning is a beginning
but no end after the end.
There is only the shadow dervish of sentience
There is only the illusory dervish of glory
From motherwomb to earthwomb
From earthwomb to waterwomb
From waterwomb to firewomb
From firewomb to airwomb
From airwomb to voidwomb
From voidwomb to agewomb
From life
To longevity
Hereafter
The immortality of life
Without beginning or end, end or beginning
Listen, O man, O perception, O glory
You are born but you have no death
Both man and the universe begin as a foetus;
Not the union of the formed with the formless
Nor of the formed with feeble form
The union of form and form makes the formless
Of formless and formless makes the form
Waterless, earthless
Fireless, airless
Form meets form in covetous coupling
Thereafter begins the breath of life
In all creatures the cycle of life
Before every beginning is a beginning
but no end after the end
Who slays whom? Whose knife is it?
Which bullet or dagger? On earth or beyond
Who is dead and who lives
Zinda-murda, the living dead
Who submits? Who orders?
Whose coffin? Whose shoulders?
Power-besotted blinded men
King or subject, you must awaken
If time’s bayonet
Is pointed at your head
from this time to another
from this life to another
from this body to another
you are not your master
borne by another
you are merely
a moving coffin(The translation was done as part of a Dhaka Translation Center Poetry workshop during last year's Dhaka Lit Fest)
Muhammad Nurul Huda is a poet, essayist and literary activist.
Saturday, March 22, 2025
