Gram Suhrid Forum

Translated By Alam Mahbub

Leaving Kaurikhara behind,
we gathered beneath the green
                   maternal shade
of Sushilabala Primary School,
raising a forum of fellowship
hand in hand.

Some old Das patriarch,
Kuchdas Babu perhaps,
 

once built a homestead
beside the Tarabunia canal.
 

Through time’s erosion,
 
Kuchdaskathi became Kustakathi. 

Rows of school benches,
lessons of numbers 

 and memory.
Sushilabala in white�"
 

like a humble Begum Rokeya
among reeds, 

      kans flowers,
and the dusk-river of nol grass.
An exhausted cart-driver
drowses beneath the sun.

Yet here
we shall light the pilgrim lamp�"
 
for Muslim labourers, potters, 

Malo fisherfolk,
for all who carry the dust of this soil.

O companion of human tenderness,
 

will you hear poetry
hidden inside conversation?

Come then�"
to this field of art and creation,
 

where a poet of new beginnings
draws the living portrait
Gram Suhrid Forum. And still,
                  fixed in the earth,
stands the signpost:
Haji Motaleb Colony.