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One Day Eight Years Ago - Poem by Jibanananda DasIt was heard: to the post-mortem cellhe had been taken;last night—in the darkness of Falgoon-nightWhen the five-night-old moon went down—he was longing for death.His wife lay beside—the child therewith;hope and love abundant__in the moonlight—what ghostdid he see? Why his sleep broke?Or having no sleep at all since long—he now has fallen asleepin the post-mortem cell.Is this the sleep he’d longed for!Like a plagued rat, mouth filled with crimson frothnow asleep in the nook of darkness;And will not ever awake anymore.‘Never again will wake up,never again will bearthe endless—endless burdenof painful waking—’It was told to himwhen the moon sank down—in the strange darknessby a silence like the neck of a camel that might have shown upat his window side.Nevertheless, the owl stays wide awake;The rotten still frog begs two more momentsin the hope for another dawn in conceivable warmth.We feel in the deep tracelessness of flocking darknessThe unforgiving enmity of the mosquito-net all around;The mosquito loves the stream of lifeawake in its monastery of darkness.From sitting in blood and filth, flies fly back into the sun;How often we watched moths and flies hoveringin the waves of golden sun.The close-knit sky, as if—as it were, some scatteredlives, possessed their hearts;The wavering dragonflies in the grasp of wanton kidsFought for life;As the moon went down, in the impending gloomWith a noose in hand you approached the aswattha,alone, by yourself,For you’d learnta human would ne’er live the life of a locust or a robinThe branch of aswatthaHad it not raged in protest? And the flock of firefliesHadn’t they come and mingled withthe comely bunch of daffodils?Hadn’t the senile blind owl come overand said: ‘the age-old moon seems to have been washed awayby the surging waters?Splendid that!Let’s catch now rats and mouse! ’Hadn’t the owl hooted out this cherished affair?Taste of life—the fragrance of golden corn of winter evening—seemed intolerable to you; —Content now in the morgueIn the morgue—sultrywith the bloodied mouth of a battered rat!Listenyet, tale of this dead; —Was not refused by the girl of love,Didn’t miss any joy of conjugal life,the bride went ahead of timeand let him knowhoney and the honey of reflection;His life ne’er shivered in demeaning hungeror painful cold;Sonow in the morguehe lies flat on the dissection table.Know—I knowwoman’s heart—love—offspring—home—not allthere is to things;Wealth, achievement, affluence apartthere is some other baffling surprisethat whirls in our veins;It tires and tires,and tires us out;but there is no tiringin the post mortem celland so,there he rests, in the post mortem cellflat on the dissection table.Still I see the age-old owl, ah,Nightly sat on the aswattha boughWinks and echoes: ‘The olden moon seemsto be carried away by the flooding waters?That’s splendid!Let’s catch now rats and mouse—’Hi, granny dear, splendid even today?Let me age like you—and see offthe olden moon in the whirlpool at the Kalidaha;Then the two of us will desert life’s abundant reserve. ― Jibanananda Das, Selected Poems

One Day Eight Years Ago – Poem by Jibanananda DasIt was...

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