You Don’t Even Know Earth

Translated by Fakrul Alam

Look! Look outside

Behold the state of the world

Poles once propped up the powerful and the proud

Now they have all gone now, destroyed by a virus!

Oh humans, don't you see the human side

Don't you understand what life is all about?

In honing your knife

You've lost your armor!

Now one can't recognize earth itself

The list of the dead keeps increasing

Neither the rich nor the poor

Know at this time who the real enemy is!

You can't be at war with the air

The whole world is now a battlefield

The sky has its limits and your terrain

Is not as boundless as you once thought it to be!

Don't venture out; everything is contaminated!

Stay home for sometime

Nature has turned hostile; the corona reigns

And we must pay our debts!

Stay safe; stay in some house corner

Keep your country safe 

Like your mother's face

Let earth live forever!

Only pray that our combined dreams

Will make these bad times disappear

Let the ones who have lost all recover

Let love live on forever!

Surely we won't lose; humanity must triumph

We'll see better days coming

The green leaf outside 

Will smile again on a sparkling new day!

Kamal Chowdhury is an award-winning poet and the Chief Coordinator of the National Implementation Committee for the Celebration of the Birth Centenary of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Translated By Fakhrul Alam, who is UGC Professor, University of Dhaka.