Adaptations from Tagore: Two Love Poems, and a Song of Saudade

Farewell

1.

Hear the fading footsteps of time.
Its carriage, often lost in mist
Creates heartbeats in multiverses
Sadness of stars in darkness of defeat
As if.

Traveler,
This time, this passing time,
Weaves my soul in a fine mesh
Lifts me to itself
On a journey to eternity
Away, far away from you.

As if I sail
Through a myriad endings
To the awakening of dawn
As if there’s wind in my hair
That takes away my name,
And all that once defined, confined
The mind.

Know there’s no way back.
Even if you looked my way again,
I would be lost by then.

Traveler, is this farewell.

2.

Someday if ever,
In repose
Or listless leisure,
In silent spring breeze
Wafts in a sigh,
From the shores of yesterlife,
Or fills up the sky,
Wails of long withered flowers…
Look behind then,
For something of me would still remain
On that edge of forever.

Maybe as a sunray
In a morning of memories
Maybe as a dream
Quite nameless at dawn,
Yet not quite a dream
Perhaps my truth,
My love that will remain
Unchanging, in your name.
While I dissolve in change
Along the fading footsteps of time.

Traveler, this is farewell.

3.

Grieve not for me
My work and world awaits
The vessel overflows by day
With unuttered raison d’etre
To fill up emptinesses
Is a pledge I take away.

What I gave to you
Is yours without an end
Rest, trickling by drops
Are absorbed as elixir
By each earthly day.
Beloved
What I gave you, is what you gave my heart
What you accepted of me, indebted me again.

Traveler, farewell.

[Adaptation of select stanzas / favourite lines from the ‘Shesh Kobita‘ of Shesher Kobita. ]

Reverie

Far, far away
In a world of dreams, in Ujjain
Cannot remember when…
By the river Shipra I went
Looking for my first beloved
From another life, again.

She was dreamlike dressed
Lodhr-pollen powdered her face
A divine Lotus in hand
Kunda-buds on the ears
Kurubak-blossoms adorning her hair
Slender frame secure with a scarlet sash
Anklets made half music as she passed.
On such a spring day
I lost myself to find her way.

Beholding me,
She lowered her lamp, came tenderly
Placing her hand in mine
Asked silently with pensive eyes
‘Hope you are well ….’
I would speak, but had nothing to say
Our words forgotten on the way
Our names
We thought so much but could not tell
Tears trickled from unblinking gaze.

Who knows when, in what play
Her hand then came to hide away
In both of mine
Like a homing bird of evening sky.
Her face
Like a soft stem lotus, dropped slowly
Upon my chest. Eager, forlorn,
In quietude flowed
A breath in a breath.

[ Adaptation of select stanzas / favourite lines from Shopno. ]
…

Glossary

Ujjain — an ancient city beside the Shipra river in Central India
Lodhr-pollen — a tree pollen used as facial cosmetic
Kunda-buds — buds of small white flowered plants
Kurubak-blossoms — yellow flowers used as hair adornment

Saudade

Where the night flows into the deep of day
We meet at that sublime confluence
Here, dissolves our dark and light
In distant shades of black and white
Here. The waves race
In immanent restlessness
From this shore, to the far other end.

From the bottomless blue silence
Echo profound words of grace
On the touchstone of the Absolute
A line of gold is etched
I look up, look again, still cannot see your face
In embrace of your dreams … I remain awake
As tears flow in forever ache.

 [ Adaptation of a favourite song Ratri eshe jethay meshe ]

More to read

Chitrangada – English translation of Tagore’s dance drama

Bipade More Rakkha Karo: The Prayer to Be Fearless (Translation of Tagore Song)

Two Tagore Songs of ‘Puja’ Parjaay in Translation

About the Author

Jumelia ( 3 Posts)

Jumelia is an engineer, an IT consultant, a management student and a classical dancer; also an avid reader of various genres, a mother of two lovely daughters, and a diligent midnight blogger, all in random order. She is still soul-searching and poetry soothes her.
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