The Neighbour Poem by Sajjad Sharif

In this sleeping, sunken village
The wind scattered and foreign
I get to know her or I don't
Through signs beyond language

Far away the barbed wire horizon
Far away among the clouds, the ecstatic
White flying tower, and
Down below a lonely red flower

Tell me, O flower, my neighbour
Is the wind your child?
It transmits incomprehensible signs
And more lives flare up within my life

In your dancing mudras
Why are you paying this non-obeisance?
In this night, no one can tell
Whether you are you, or me

Still every Geography curriculum
Keeps on teaching this:
In this night-watching, lofty village
The wind, by the way, blows
Translated from Bangla by Syed Manzoorul Islam