The Green Flutterings At Arannyak Poem by Sofiul Azam

(for Muni Auntie, Shohail Uncle and Bachchu Uncle)

1.

At Arannyak, the whitest bungalow by the greenest lake,
I see every mind open up like petals of a flower
and the long-lost fragrance floods again our senses.

But we poor city-dwellers drone like machines;
it's once again we stand - plagued by doubts,
and kind of startled by a sudden feel of fears

running through every vein like incorrigible blood.

2.

But something more often than never pulls us
to places where we learn about life's archaeology,
and let out the psyche in the blessed shower.

Oh, how rarely we do come to breathe free at last,
and to see some wonders uncoil with promises
like nature could still be a glory for all our life!

Yes, it heals with care the hurts in the heart.

3.

In the midst of this forest denser than thick hair
on a teen's head, I walk alone, listening to a silence
kind of whizzing fast like a subtle message

through the embracing leaves I see on branches;
never do I feel in the least ashamed every time
I wonder who puts such green on every leaf

and if this greenery can brush away the grey in me.

The sunshine falls on every leaf and turns green,
and the shrubs cluster as if to say: united we stand,
and the wind blows like a mother's kisses on her child.

Yes, I feel: whatever may come, I don't even care,
for I have known for sure a difference widening
between the dry rustling and the green fluttering.

Oh, no more talk to me of cold embers but emeralds.


from IN LOVE WITH A GORGON (2010)