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Ekushey

MOHAMMAD RAFIQ (translated by Syed Manzurul Islam)
Great and noble Twentyfirst, the blood-hued
Twentyfirst February.
Barefoot processions and streams of people
on Dhaka's streets;
As if a flashflood has swept all these youths here.
Girls with flowing hair and white saris--
the young men in their fine shirts, sleeves rolled up.
A black badge pinned to the left shoulder, faces sweating from a ritual fire.
From a flower-bedecked dais the poet shouts his fiery words, the revolutionary rhythm of words, phrases
and songs which, like un-reined horses of the sun, tear
through the air filling the sky with echoes of drumming hooves a thousand hands raised in hope to make possible the impossible.
The sun's galleon drops its oars in the eastern sky.
Barely two miles from Dhaka to the south lies
Bailapur;
and Jamir: predictably unclad bare feet and empty-stomached--couldn't even afford a few leftover morsels from last night's meal-puts yoke on a pair of skeletal oxen.
Vacant, nothing to do now. Nothing to do yesterday, or tomorrow.
Yet expecting the barren red soil, a gift from forefathers, would at last speak
lashed by the angry iron of the plough.
And Rahimuddin opens the shutters of his shop and sweeps the dirt out.
Last night the mice ate into his store of pulses.
The executioner has no special dress, no family tree, no name, place or postal address. A bloated smile plays on his lips
displaying in its ebb and flow a varied conflict of countless waves.
Geographic landmarks are etched on the history of the land and time.
Birth on the gift of a moment, death of a particular day,
The neck waits under a raised blade, as language finds similes under a guillotine, and courage and the integrity of words; and an honest trade in return.
But in your effort to dig out a grave
and hide Jamir's remains in it, you have forgotten the Twenty-First.
But tell me: has the day forgotten you?
Mohammad Rafiq is one of Bangladesh's leading poets. Syed Manzurul Islam teaches English at Dhaka University.