# Traveller Poem by Shamik Kumar Bose

PERHAPS one night this tranquil sleep may break
With profoundest sigh such dream be shattered with the jerk awake

Around the ascent of nascent dawn
This hollowness inside may surely spawn

I shall wake then, begin to walk,
My morning sun does not abandon dark

To start from this city of joy in nigh on slumber,
Who knows what the journey for enjoyment be

Alongside this lane, the loneliest roads I have crossed,
One by one,
I am bestowed by the tiniest of paths,
Its greeting is mine

These fields of rice! These villages green!
Ah! All will be gone.
My heart travels lonely, unsung

As I may cross so many a hill, ravine, and forest,
Yet mountains of snow are my only garment

Until I reach the lake
May I?
To take a breath!
Such gratitude mine at its depth
So profound my feeling

Then, and then only, shall I see what I am,
I may be lonely, yet then, only then,
Shall I start to fathom.
This!

Shamik Bose 28th April 2010

Edited and proof corrected by Jens Duffy