Let there be Rain
Shafiqul Islam
Introductory Word…
Searching the insight of life through the lens of poem is the main objective of the poet. Though hope, aspiration, frustration, deprivation of life stir the poet yet the poet always remain enthusiastic with his poetic sprit and It is clearly reflected.
Nature and love is the source of endless inspiration In his poetry. The poet give the language to the untold emotion of youth’s heart through his poem which turn into external expression of universal emotion.
Sulota,
This is dedicated to
Your endless memory,
When I will be no more,
My verses will be waiting for you
Till that very day too…
Contents
Let there be Rain 5
D (Diana) you’ve left 7
A valiant warrior 9
When I remember mother 12
Sulota, after long days 14
Father, once a little boy 15
Three Casualties 17
My heart feels an acute pain 19
You were along with me for long 20
Whenever I remember you 22
Mother I remember 23
Sulota, yet there is time 25
I know, you’ve forgotten all now 26
Sulota You’re no more here 27
If I wish I can go 28
One day Cloud of the sky too 29
Dear, you tell me 30
Dad, how you went away 31
Sulota, I’ll also disappear one day 33
Friend, where you go 34
Sulota I don't know 35
Nondita, where you stay now 37
When all your claims 38
Sulota, one day 39
I remain sitting alone 41
I know light of lamp is for all 42
O, my life one day you're 43
For a long time 44 This song, this melody 46
Let there be Rain
After many days
Today wind beckons a immediate rainfall
And nectar smell of clay spread in the air-
Everyone is worried about
Thinking immediate shower.
Everybody is eager to return home
Before starting rain
Yet there is no worry in my mind
No remarkable hastiness is visible
In my movement.
After a long heat wave
Possibility of coveted shower
Spread joy furtively in my warm heart.
I await eagerly for rainfall.
Let it rain now
Let it come down after long
Though there is no shade of big tree
To take shelter,
Even I have no umbrella
If rain water soaks my whole body,
Wearing clothes--
In spite of that let the rain come
May it fall over the whole sky
Let the rain drop submerging
fields and meadows.
If that unfrugal rain water drowns me
Even engulfs my homestead
There is no loss-
Yet, be it rained
In ,
Drought-engulfed famine-striken
Most unfortunate
Let vast waste land of
Be filled with green crops.
Before happening all
Let there be Rain
In the desert of conscience,
May the humanity bloom there
Alike flower.
And the world and evils of mind
Be purified.
Let man’s love for one another
Turns into fountain
Mixing with rain water.
Let it flows as endless wave
Touching every thirsty soul.
Now, after a long time
May it rain in torrent
This time, profusely
Across our fields and meadows
Of dust-covered filthy heart.
D (Diana) you’ve left
D (Diana) you’ve left
Your motions have rested forever
So what.
Does it stop speed of river
Mute noise of the planet?
Solar round also didn't stop
And it'll never stop, we know.
D you departed
But unknown ache
Stopped my heartbeat
Made me speechless
I feel ,I am dead
And you 're awaking slowly
In the depth of me.
Invisible earthquake appears
Inside me as if it has created now
A vacuum of immense cavity .
D once you mixed your voice
In the affairs of the world.
You kept your valuable footprint
On the public street.
That may be also wiped out one day
And expunged hit by hit with fountain
A sudden stroke of time.
But we know
Your paramount picture
That you painted in our heart
Can never be wiped out
By earthly rain or scorching
D, you belong to haven now
But one day you came down mistakenly
To this world of mortals
Feeling affection for us.
It is our failure
We couldn’t catch hold of you
As you are adamant to leave
It is our tragic debacle
to a cute beauty
You a short lived guest
A resident of paradise
Are only our strength now
Your adolescent youth
That is full of blossoms
Spreads ambrosial perfume
And you spread it
On the eve of your departure
With your generous hands
That's our resort now
High-priced bounty gifted by you
D, your fragrance of breathing
Is blended with the blowing wind
In our habitual life.
Your smile of scarlet lips is
Mixed in the red glow of
East sky at dawn.
Blush of your rosy skin is
Mixed in the midst of cherry rose
We've lost and discovered you
Anew among us in the
Guise of glamour.
Our eternal salute to you.
We'll no more see you again
As the queen of royal palace
We'll no more enjoy a joy of
your cheerful glorious appearance
And thousands of fan
Right from now, you've been
The queen of our heart
In the throne of our hearts.
A valiant warrior
A valiant warrior
Who fetched country's independence
From the hands of enemy
Risking his own life,
A victor general
Who ran from frontline to frontline
To command his fellow solders
Who didn’t have a time to repose
Who also fostered dream of liberation
Of his native land all the time in mind
Amid sound of bullet and ammunition
And incense of gunpowder
One day he really snatched
The victory of his dear motherland
Depending only his self confidence
Who also established this land
As sovereign and independent one
In world map.
That heroic freedom fighter and captain
Was assassinated unarmed
At the hands of defiant deviated
Army under his command.
Now, with no bullet of rebel army
His chest became bullet ridden
With the bullet of fellow soldiers
And that inflated chest fostered
And endless love for his homeland
And countrymen
That width and breadth hairy bosom
Was in comprehensible defense line
Of beloved motherland
But one day his chest spilled
incessant flow of blood
Piercing bullet and rockets
With the treason of traitors
That general stained
The soil of his homeland
With warm and refreshing blood of kernel
A military suprimo staying at frontline
Would order his solders for blitz
With a roaring "March, Attack"
Triggered his unconscious countrymen
That roaring voice
Has now been stopped forever
With sudden violent sound of
Cruel arms of gruesome killer
Who silently came at midnight
This valiant fighter
Has never been defeated
In any frontline battle
That he became defeated now
In the posterior attack
Of gunmen.
In a stormy uneven
And unarmed battle
We certainly know
The conspiring killer group
Assassinated him shooting from behind
Though rival force
Couldn’t defeat him
And they won't ever
He who's undefeatable hero
In frontline battle,
Who's clad in warfare outfit in the battle field
A mighty hero in one front to another front,
We bow down and pay armed salute to you
Our red salute to you
Who's indomitable champion
Over enemy and battle
He's victorious hero
In our heart forever
War and enemy hero.
When I Remember mother
When I Remember mother
I get back shade of a tree
That expands cool and shady
Branches and twigs on me
It also reminds me
An illusive moonlit
That has dark extinguishing
Cold light having no heat
It again reminds me
A past of a silent lake
Just at noon of summer heat chaitra
That instantly cures
Pains of body and mind.
While jumping its water
Also makes me think of both
The untiring eyes
And gaze that's full of caring
What's steady every moment
Like a shadow in my departure
Heavenly feel of that cheerful sight
Kept me safe from all sins and pains
Mother's commemoration
Also reminds me
Sweet smell of unseen
Wild flower evaporated in the air
On my movement
That in a moment spreading
A gentle fragrance all the time
Triggers my sense
In every turn of my life
It provides me
A refreshing inspiration
Uninterrupted to my journey
And I make my way slowly and slowly
Go forward more and more
And finally I reach to my destination.
Sulota, after long days
Sulota, after long days
I had a touch of your soft hand
Full of anxiety-
As you have tested
The degree of temperature
Touching my feverish forehead
By your soft palm
Since then I felt gradual cure
And it's your magic touch
Oh! Sulota cover me up
Under your saree's Anchal
Give me warm of your soft breast
And you see, how soon
I come round
Without any diet
Whenever I think of healing
An abnormal tension
Grips me intensely
It always causes
Me to think of
My healing means
A departure from your sweet
Company for few more days
And my release from your
Worried and sincere nursing
May be you don't know
Without you how much sick
I am in unsick life
Perhaps you don't know
How unhappy I'm
Foe want of your close proximity
Without you ,deathless death
Comes down in my life.
Father, once a little boy
Father, once a little boy
who didn’t know
Exact traffic rules of moving left and right
By catching hand you took him out
To the path of life,
Where you've gone today
Father, tell me
Leaving that child
Alone in the midst of life
Making him embarrassed.
That very child
Who even forgot to return home
In the late afternoon
Being engaged in playing.
In the evening, found him out
From the foot of sheuli-tree
Took me up catching my hand
Scolding affectionately.
But today, you've forgotten
To raise, your loud cry
To bring your affectionate child
To make return to your tiny tot
Even at night.
Your little boy
Whom you took to the river Ghat
At childhood to learn swimming,
Didn't leave his hand alone
Lest your babe should wash away
With violent stream.
Today your child
Struggles floating in the stormy
Wave of life-
And arouses his surroundings
Raising wailing sound- "father, father"
Yet you forgot
To extend your hand as well.
Today what type of indifference
Grips you profoundly.
Alas! you're now away
From all kinds of
Earthly phenomena.
Three Casualties
I remember my childhood
When I eagerly collected a white toy horse
Out of great passion
One day while playing
A limb of that horse was damaged accidently—
I tried to recover lost beauty of that horse
By transplanting its organ—
But I couldn’t.
For many days I could not forget
Sorrow of that failure
And loss of physical beauty
Arising out of injury of that horse.
One day that horse also lost somewhere.
In the passage of time,
I forgot that sadness of childhood.
Other day unmindfully I took another toys
Though I don’t know
When it came to my hand.
After attaining adolescence
While playing my favorite cricket game
In the field with a favorite cricket ball
Suddenly rolling and rolling
That ball also got watery grave
Into the water of canal
Following violent stroke of my bat.
After searching repeatedly
I didn’t find that green little cricket ball
Which was playmate of my early age.
For a long time I fostered my childhood day’s
Sorrow of losing that cricket ball.
One day that sorrow of adolescent days
Gradually faded in the womb of time.
But I didn’t look back
When I had been enticed with other play.
Now in my youthful days
The loss of missing you
Can never be forgotten—
The vacuum of your separation
Seems to be irreparable.
Your comparison can be made with you
And only with you.
Your unbearable absence
cannot be filled up without you.
The loss arising out of missing you
Remains as permanent injury-mark
In the midst of my chest.
My heart feels an acute pain
My heart feels an acute pain
For a few days
In the middle of my chest.
All specialists of chest-disease
Failed to diagnose
In this case.
This ailment
Stretched up to the inner part of the heart
Beyond the line of cardiograph and x-ray plate.
How they will know
Whose heartless cruelty
Develops heart-disease in this soft chest
Whose absence created such a large vacuum
In this tiny heart?
Though one day
Heart-beat of this bosom
Was supposed to be more refreshing
Having your sweet companion.
Yet my heart beat has now been stopped
And comes to a standstill
Like pointer of a watch
Which is out of order,
Due to your unbeatable separation
In the midst of busy life.
You were along with me for long
You were along with me for long
That time I could not feel
How much influence you spread in my mind.
Now I see such a big house
Looks deserted in your absence.
Wherever I stare at
I feel sign of your memories
The shirt hung in the ulna,
The broken spectacles on the showcase,
The old rusty wrist-watch on the side-table
Half-read inanimate book of poetry laid on tripod,
Everything tells your memory
With soundless sound
Still the evaporation from your
Perfume-mixed sweating lovely body
Spreads a tempting sweet fragrance in the air
Though the fact is that
You have left me long ago.
Still I remember your restless sound
Being irked by failing to find out something
Calling me Mou, Mou, Mou.
"Where are you" where had you been?
Yet I hear that sweet annoying sound
Mixed with affection.
If I pay hear to your footfall in the whole house
One day you felt my necessity crazily in your life.
But today I am like a
Ending part of a burning cigarette
Left abandoned in an ash-tray.
Now I am going to be gutted
Burning day by day.
For long time you didn't try to get me
You have forgotten me for a long time.
Whenever I remember you
Whenever I remember you
It reminds me of
endless vacuum of remote space--
It also reminds waves of endless solitude sea
Which break one after another
And I am floating
In a deserted raft-
No one and nothing around me.
When I think of you
It reminds me
Wailing sound of a bewildered traveler
Who is lost in an endless desert--
The sound that is echoed
In a silent horizon .
Mother I remember
Mother I remember
One day you said ‘man after death
Becomes star in the sky’.
Mother you are no more
You had left us untimely
And left forever heartlessly!
Have you been star in the distant sky?
That’s why I cannot sleep
While stare at the star-crowded sky.
And I remember you again and again
Spending whole night without sleep
Beside the open window
Looking at the endless sky.
And look for you
amid thousands of stars.
Mother you're no more
Now disarrayed clothes
Of your boy kept in the ulna
Lying haphazardly day after day
Books of your child remain
Scattered around
On the reading table and bed.
None put them in order carefully
With unselfish sincerity.
None takes the leftover utensils of kitchen
To the ghat of pond.
To clean them shining.
While being tired I return home
No one comes forward to wipe
Sweat from my forehead affectionately
With the sarri's anchal.
No one says, putting of clothes
Come my boy to eat
Don't be late.
None becomes busy to arrange
The dishes in the dining table.
Having been ill
While sleeping in bed at night
No one comes with careful silence
To measure The degree of illness
Putting her hand
On my warm forehead.
No one draws up the dislocate blanket
That slipped away from my body
With affectionate carefulness
Lest the boy should get up from sleep.
While I sleep reading without closing
The book open slightly.
None comes to switch off the light
Closing the half-open book.
Mother it is for your
Unbearable absence
Disorder and mismanagement is seen everywhere
In the life of your beloved child.
Negligence and innumerable defeat
Is also available.
Mother recollecting you again and again
One day I will be star in the sky.
Searching you again and again
One day I will also be lost
In the sky of stars
And you will not get opportunity
To forbid me.
Sulota, yet there is time
Sulota, yet there is time
Please return to this heart,
Else this planet will turn into
A tragic and lonely island,
In a twinkling of an eye
out of one heart’s groaning.
Wind of this world will be heavier
Crossing the danger level
With the long sigh of a heart
The level of sea water will exceed
Its danger mark
With the tears of eyes of a heart.
Sulota, please come back
Come back please
To save a heart
And for the cause of a beautiful world.
'Love is ever undefeatable'
To prove the universal truth
Of this eternal maxim
You rather come back
I call you to come back
In the name of a beautiful world
Again I call you to come back
In the name of saving of a dying heart
I beg you to return
In the name of the prospect of future.
Please you come back
And no more hesitation
You come on please
Having faith in love.
I know, you’ve forgotten all now
I know, you’ve forgotten all now
Yet, forgotten memories
Strike my mind
Over and again mistakenly-
May be you’re now watching
Blue sky and raft of white cloud
Sitting on Balcony
Under the shade of the closing afternoon.
When all my negligent-wounded memories
Remain lying carelessly in corner
Beside your mind.
Who knew your love
Changes rout hundred times
Like a river.
Today multidimensional pains of life
have come and mixed in my life.
It will be wrong
If you think
I have been more alone than earlier
After your departure.
Just to remind you I am telling you
I am not alone
I have your memories with me—
And carrying pain of love
Inside the heart
I was floated long way alone.
Sulota, you’re no more here
Sulota, you’re no more here
None comes to this room now-
This abandoned room cries
With melancholy solitude
Like a damaged nest.
Sulota, you’re not here
No more voice like sound of bangles
Is heard now and then in this room.
Only an uninterrupted compressed silence
Surrounds this house and yard like the sky
All the time.
Hectic wind
Cast glance to the room
Trembling the screen hung in the window -
But finding you no more
It disappears with a heavy heart
Towards an unknown destination.
The full moon at moonlit night
Looks for you by peeping
But becomes silent with a pensive look
Without having trace of you,
Sulota, you are no more.
If I wish I can go
If I wish I can go
Wherever I like--
Even beyond this field of mustard,
Beyond this turning of road
By passing transparent water of lake
And green allusion of Krishnachura.
I can freely move anywhere.
But I can’t leave you
I return to you again and again.
Here and there everywhere I go;
In spite of leaving all
Finally, I stay with you.
One day Cloud of the sky too
One day Cloud of the sky too
turning into raindrop also fall,
River water also dry out sometimes,
Stone also diminishes one day
But why doesn’t memory exhaust?
Why does her memory
Float like unchanged picture
In the ambit of mind?
In the mean time,
a long era and centuries Seems to have passed
Since we met long ago.
Yet I remember her exact appearance
That exact lovely face,
Eyebrow-pattern,
Split potol-shaped long eyes,
And red line of her rose-petal like lips,
That flood of hair as black as cloud of Srabon.
Everything comes to memory
Full stop, comma, semicolon
With every punctuation mark—
Her every word seems to be
A line of the world’s best verse,
Modulation of her voice
Sounds like best song of the world.
Her youthful lovely figure
Appears to be best sculpture of the world.
Forgetting her cannot be possible,
Can it be?
No, it is difficult to forget her.
Dear, you tell me
Dear, you tell me
How I can change your topic
It is you who is my favorite issue
Without you what is rest for me?
All the time your face
Stands before my eyes.
It is you and you alone
Who remains in my heart.
Each turning of your figure,
Even little fat in the fold
Of your lovely skin
All are memorized in my mind.
And every moment
I recite your glamour.
When I stand before the mirror,
Even I cannot feel
When your lovely face reflects there
Covering my image.
When I go to temple for Worship
I cannot feel
When the idol of goddess
Turn into your shape
And I return worshiping you.
Dad, how you went away
Dad, how you went away
Following a sudden untimely departure
Without giving notice and early declaration
Without bidding farewell
That is given out of inherent courtesy
With out affectionate kiss
To the cheek of your own child.
The watch kept on the table,
The Punjabi hung on the ulna
And unfolded spectacles with thick lens
Was lying where it was— And in an odd time
Ominous siesta grasped you forever.
It seems, ages-long tiredness
Stretched all over your appearance.
The effect of countless sleepless-night
Visible in your half-closed eyes-
And your eye-lid
Laden with deep sleep.
You who kept rousing
The entire house with a hue and cry
Today what a hidden anger
Made you silent suddenly forever.
We’ll never hear again
Selfless advice of carefulness
Without expecting return
“Boy, move on the road very carefully,
While crossing the road
Looking your left and right side.”
Father, on the street
There is unbearable traffic jam today—
Your kid’s breathing
Becomes throttled with
Poisonous smoke of running vehicles
That flood the roads.
Invisible assassin, snatcher
And disguised kidnapper
Wait in ambush in turning of roads,
here and there and in shady and dark lane.
And there’s certain fears
Of being crushed anytime
Following clear enmity
Of speedy and inhuman vehicles,
Father, who’ll direct
My way today amid
This toughest complication
To my way of movement ?
Who’ll show me the way of release
Who’ll give me assurance and hope.
Father, you tell me
Over which passionate anger
You had been silent forever—
What secret deep injury drove you untimely
Towards such a sudden departure.
Tell me for what an untold annoyance
You are lying now forever
Showing back to life—
You are not responding to anyone’s call
Not even looking back to anyone
Why you are frozen in a deep sleep
Even in such a rising time--
Awaking your child
For infinitive period.
Sulota, I’ll also disappear one day
Sulota, I’ll also disappear one day
As you.
The path that you have followed
Leaving me one day ,
I’ll also follow it some day
Piercing this circle of relationship.
The track you’ve chosen
I’ll pass on the rest of my life
Searching you on that way.
Sulota, the day when you left me
Since then this room becomes
Prison to me.
Without you
The whole day of mine
Turns into an endless dark night.
Friend, where you go
Friend, where you go
Far or near
I’ll give you shade like the sky
And call you often from distance
Beckoning with the hand .
In Autumn, Rain and Spring
I’ll dress me up with
Varied new attire—
But in the heart
I must remain for you.
I am sea,
In the heat of Chaitra
When the thin river of water
Will also dry up and disappear—
That day too I’ll call you
To the estuary of sea,
When you’ll not love me
I’ll love you that day also.
Sulota, I don't know
Sulota, I don't know
where you're now
But one day you're
Inseparable part in my life.
Even I could not think
Of this life without you.
Nevertheless, I live alone today
Without having you beside me.
Even I can't imagine
What type of life it is.
You that very person
Without whom I can't go on
For a single moment
Are no more today.
Many a morning, noon and
Afternoon rolled down
I can't believe
How I could pass time in such a loneliness.
Sulota, can you imagine
River without bank
Cloud without sky, nest without bird?
No, you can't.
Sulota, similarly my existence
Is incredible without you
And thus
My life is unbearable, endangered too.
One day my heart sought release
Resorting to your love.
But you are no more today.
I am as though confined
Like a self-convicted
Captive prisoner in a solitary dark cell
In the prison of pain and depression.
Sulota, please you do come
And take to the light.
I am awaiting you
For endless period.
Nondita, where you stay now
Nondita, where you stay now
And how you are
Whose beloved now you are
I don't know, I don't know.
On that corridor of college and campus
While climbing up the stairs case
Many a time we've exchanged looks
Exchanged our words of minds in a silent look.
Nondita, we don't know
In which ends of two polar
Of the earth we've staying
Between that two ends
Memories of love stretched
For a long time we could not meet.
With the passage of time
We don't know where we were thrown
Like a star which lost its orbit.
Time is creating invincible distance
Between us.
Everything ruins I know
But still memories of
Those days alive.
When all your claims
When all your claims
I have accepted unconditionally
Why you conflict with me meaninglessly
Why such type of non-co-operation.
Madhobi, still last moment hasn't been over
Still there is love, passion, favour
In the heart.
Madhobi, please come back
Come back to the heart of my love.
Let us make our life meaningful.
Depriving me
You will have nothing but deception.
Friend, come on
Let us make this moon and moonlight
Smile of blossomed flower meaningful
With the song of our love.
Sulota, one day
Sulota, one day
because of your presence
I had so many dreams
Now you are no more in my life
So there are vast vacuum in my heart
As though when a caged bird left cage
Vacuum inside the cage looks.
Sulota, you have left me
My heart becomes now
A silent solitary fellow land.
It looks so silent and solitude
As though after a train having left
The station,
The platform of the station
Remains with a gloomy isolation
And for sometime festival-like
Hue and cry stopped.
Sulota, such is my heart
Crying with silent pain
As silence come down while festival closed.
Sulota, in your absence
Every line of my poem
Turns into dry drops of tears.
Sulot, a in my silent look
There are tearless silent wailing.
Sulota, you are not with me today,
With a heavy heart caused by separation
I wrote verses of sorrow again and again
If it solace my heart
If it make me forget
Inner sufferings of my heart
For a while.
I seek at present release
Under the shelter of poetry.
I remain sitting alone
I remain sitting alone
Facing a lot of thoughts
And talk to me by myself.
River and women never know
To return.
It is in vain to remain
Sitting in waiting
And making string with tears.
I am sitting alone
In a gloomy solitude
Taking in the heart
Only unending sands
And endless vacuum.
One have to bear
Flow of pain emanating
From river Folgu
In the chest secretly
Loving river and woman.
I know light of lamp is for all
I know light of lamp is for all
But the burning of light
That know
Only for unfortunate death of insects.
Such is your love I know
To light the heart of all other
And only to burn me.
I know your attraction for all
Your love for all
And I know
Your negligence only for me
I know this cruel disregard
Only for me.
O, my life one day you're
O, my life, one day you're
Of dream and impractical imagination
Of unpredicted impossibility.
And today
In the life-driven struggle
Every moment
We are injured, blood-spattered
And tired.
Ah life
Why you weren't
Alike a sweet little music
Alike a rhythmic poem.
For a long time
For a long time
I am bed-ridden in a cabin of hospital.
And the hospital seems to be my abode.
No possibility of recovery rests for me.
I am now passing my days in waiting
For the last day of my life.
Yet, the bed of hospital
When I recollect your memory off and on
I get back spirit of life instantly
I eagerly wish to survive one more day
Only to see you one more day.
I am not so unhappy
With the confirmation of my ensuing death,
And if I die I cannot see you more
I cannot think you more
And that is the deepest sorrow in my life
At this moment.
Look how many phial of medicine
Huge variety of diet dumped in front of me
And every hour I am getting
Advice of apron-worn doctor.
But nothing could cure me
Even never can.
And love
Only your love can save my life.
Dear make me cured
With your love today.
With the warm of your soft breast
Give life to my cool dead body.
Capture me with your warm hug
Death will never be able to snatch me.
This song, this melody
This song, this melody
This flower, this bird
River and nature
All are lovely-- due to your presence.
This grief, this frustration
This hoax, this death
Still pleasant-- only because of your love.
