On nights like these in winter, death comes into my heart; Outside, perhaps dew is falling—or leaves, Or the song of an owl; it too is like dew, like yellowed leaves. At the distant confluence of city and village, a lion’s roar is heard— The roar of a wounded circus lion. Here, the cuckoo calls—in the middle of a Paush midnight; As if to say spring will come someday? Or is it the thirsty echo of a spring that once existed? You are not a motionless cuckoo, are you? I have seen so many cuckoos become motionless— They are no longer young, No longer youthful; The cuckoo’s song has been used up. The lion roars again— The wounded circus lion, A single frozen lion—the opium lion—blind—darkness itself. While trying to remember life inside this dim ocean of shadows all around, Everything gets lost—in the algae on a dead fish’s tail, In dark water, in the cage of fog. The lion will never find the forest again, Never again, Never again. The cuckoo’s song, Like a faded engine, sputtering and breaking, Falls silent on the magnetic hill. O Earth, O serpent-coil of the Bipasha River—you, Turn over and sleep; You will never find anything again.
