Autumn Afternoon

Autumn Afternoon

The summer should have ended. It is now mid-September, but the warmth remains. It’s only in the early mornings that we feel at times the season’s warning chill.

The memory of winter, faded through the year, revives. The laxness of the summer’s days is now replaced by tightening. The reaper comes, although the trees and all resist.

An autumn afternoon, within the park: the sun is slanting through the leafy trees; it could be summer, but the heat is gone, the shorts are scarce—and the grounds are strewn with leaves.

The adults and the children stroll and play—as elders, on the benches, contemplate. The sky is bright, although the sun swings low. The grass has faded from the lack of rain.

A breeze stirs up the dust. It’s lit by sun that falls, in shafts, upon the yellowed grass beneath the trees. Those trees are mostly green, with just a few that now are losing leaves.
 
The days have shortened. Soon, the sun will set. Then all the lamps that line the path around the central lawn will glow, as dusk descends—and children leave the park to those like me.

2016 September 17th, Sat., 6:20 pm
Bensonhurst Park, Brooklyn, New York 
(2nd & 4th stanzas added Sep. 18th)
 

অন্ধকারে (O`ndhokare -- In the Darkness)

   
অন্ধকারে

মনে পড়ে সেদিনের কথা,
ছোটবেলায়ে শোনা গান৷
মেঘ ভেসে যায়, জোয়ার-ভাটা
জীবন-মরন চলে৷

জ্বালাই তবু, সন্ধ্যা-বেলায়ে,
প্রদীপটুকু, জান --
রাত্রি আসে, অন্ধকারে
কে যে কথা বলে৷
 
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In the Darkness

I remember the past, the songs I heard when small…
The clouds fly by, the tides of life and death go on…

And yet, at dusk, I light the little oil-lamp.
In the darkness, someone speaks.
 
-------------------------------------------------------------
O`ndhokare

Mone po`re xediner ko`tha,
chot'obe`lae xona gan.
Megh bhexe jae, joar-bhat'a
jibo`n-mo`ron co`le.

Jalai tobu, xondhe be`lae,
prodip-t'uku, jan --
ratri axe, o`ndhokare
ke je ko`tha bo`le...

Mongol, 12-oi O`gast, 2014 kri.
Bruklin, Notun Io`rk

For a brief guide to the transcription used above, and 
to the pronunciation, please see the preface at:  
http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2014/02/bharot-xadhin-indias-freedom.html