One Ardent Map of Bangladesh*

Even one individual turns into 

an incomparable symbol priceless. 

We all then wave it like a map. 

A map and not a high-priced sapphire 

which will decorate every separate ring-finger 

with heavenly glamour. 

That is rather lonely, exactly like the sun—

exposed to all eyes. 

This map is in touch with all of us, 

but we couldn't touch. 

Map similar to every personal horizon, 

cruelly remote but so closely placed. 

This individual can be called your childhood memory. 

In sorrows of billions of nights, in rocks of billions of deaths, 

you will find him an irreversibly white lily 

made mite by mite of sharp streams 

of seventy millions of vehement rivers of blood. 

Now he is free, free like a map, 

yet wave him, wave, wave him as much as you want. 

And every time look at the crimson colour of your heart, 

grow compact in the total greenery of your watery surroundings. 

He is, with his whole body sprawling, an ardent map of Bengal, including all. 

He is perhaps one voice with them till death.

*Published in the Dainik Bangla on 10th January, 1972

The translator, Kajal Bandyopadhyay is a Bangladeshi poet, writer and academician.