Likhbe Xexe Je-লিখবে শেষে যে-The Writer at the End

There are five items in this post: 
  

• 1. the Bengali original (লিখবে শেষে যে), sparked by a Facebook post by Sanju Saha;
• 2. a Roman transcription (Likhabē Śēṣē Yē), via Google's site, http://translate.google.com, that follows the standard spelling in the Bengali script;
• 3. another Roman transcription (Likhbe Xexe Je), of the author's devising, that follows the standard Bengali pronunciation, rather than the standard spelling; 
• 4. a voice recording of the Bengali;
• 5. a translation into English (The Writer at the End).

--------------------------------------------

Item 1: Bengali Original
   
লিখবে শেষে যে

অনেক কিছু লেখার ছিল,
লেখা হল না৷
ভাবছি, কাকে বলব এখন,
বলার ছিল যা৷

ছিলে যখন পাশে, তখন
ব্যস্ত ছিলাম, তাই
লিখছি এখন, দিনের শেষে,
মনের কথা, ভাই৷ 

আসছে না, সেই বুকের ব্যাথা,
কাগজ কলমে৷
বসে আছি, তার-ই আশায়,
লিখবে শেষে যে৷
  
শুক্রবার, ৩রা মার্চ, ২০১৭ খ্রি
ব্রুক্লিন, নিউয়র্ক

https://www.facebook.com/sanju.saha.5/posts/1258502847518557
--------------------------------------------

Item 2:  The following is a Roman transcription made via http://translate.google.com.

Likhabē Śēṣē Yē

Anēka kichu lēkhāra chila,
lēkhā hala nā.
Bhābachi, kākē balaba ēkhana,
balāra chila yā.

Chilē yakhana pāśē, takhana
byasta chilāma, tā'i
likhachi ēkhana, dinēra śēṣē,
manēra kathā, bhā'i.

Āsachē nā, sē'i bukēra byāthā,
kāgaja kalamē.
Basē āchi, tāra-i āśāẏa,
likhabē śēṣē yē.

Śukrabāra, 3rā Mārca, 2017 Khri
Bruklina, Ni'uẏarka

https://www.facebook.com/sanju.saha.5/posts/1258502847518557
--------------------------------------------  
  
Item 3: The following is a Romanization made using the transcription scheme outlined briefly at http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2014/02/bharot-xadhin-indias-freedom.html and even more briefly (but perhaps too compactly) below.
  

• x = sh, c = ch.
• t and d are dental (with the tongue tip touching the backs of the upper front teeth)—as in Latin languages.
• t' and d' are alveolar (tongue tip to upper gum ridge)—as in English.
• h is used as an aspirant (an addition of a puff of breath to a consonant, as at times done in English).
• All other consonants are roughly as in English, but without aspiration.
• All vowels, including those at the ends of words, are pronounced.
• All unmarked* vowels are as in Italian and Spanish, but mostly with intermediate length (duration).
• ~ nasalizes the preceding vowel, faintly.
• Stress (loudness) and elongation (extended duration) are usually placed on the first syllable of a word, but are slight, and there is no slurring of vowels in unstressed syllables.

* Marked Vowels

• o` is like the first vowel in British orange, being a rounded, open, back vowel, of intermediate length.
• e` is as in hat, being an unrounded, open, front vowel, of intermediate length.

Again, both of these vowels have intermediate length (duration). 
 
Likhbe Xexe Je

O`nek kichu lekhar chilo,
lekha holo na.
Bhabchi, kake bolbo e`khon,
bo`lar chilo ja.

Chile jo`khon paxe, to`khon
be`sto chilam, tai
likhchi e`khon, diner xexe,
moner ko`tha, bhai.

Axche na, xei buker be`tha,
kagoj ko`lome.
Boxe achi, tar-i axae,
likhbe xexe je.

Xukrobar, 3e Marc, 2017 Khri
Bruklin, Niu Io`rk

https://www.facebook.com/sanju.saha.5/posts/1258502847518557
-------------------------------------------- 

Item 4:  This is a voice recording of the Bengali. This might not work on cellphones. Please click on the rounded-triangle play button on the right of the composite icon below. In some browsers, you might have to click twice. Adjust the volume on your device as needed.


Record music and voice >>
--------------------------------------------

Item 5: The following is a translation into English.
  
The Writer at the End

There was much to write
that wasn’t written.
I think—to whom will I tell
the things I had to say?

When you were by me, I
was busy, and so
I now attempt to write
my thoughts, dear friend.

What is in my heart
does not come to my pen.
I am waiting for the one
who will write at the end.

Friday, 3rd March, 2017 AD
Brooklyn, New York

https://www.facebook.com/sanju.saha.5/posts/1258502847518557 
  

What Chance

What Chance

You were waiting by a doorway
for the bus—and smiled at me.
And I at first ignored this—
until you came to mind.
I only then responded—
but your eyes were smiling still.

   

And later, you had dropped by,
for half an hour or so.
Our hands had touched, so briefly—
with a current passing through.

For a quarter of a century,
I have seen you come and go—
so near and yet so distant—
and always in my mind.

There’s a bond that long has linked us,
in the strangest kind of way.
It has kept us always tethered,
but always still apart.

I have seen your bloom, your fading.
I have memorized your face—
the curving of your eyelids—
your planes and shapes and shades.
 
There were dreams I had of holding
your form within my arms—
and I always then dismissed these
as idle thoughts that passed.
I even dreamt we had kissed, once,
but I smiled—and said, “What chance!”
 
2017 January 27th, Fri.
Brooklyn, New York
   

Our Wisp of Verse

Our Wisp of Verse

The present moment—that is all we have.
And yet we have it not—it comes and goes,
As water, streaming, rises, ebbs and flows.
Can men possess the wind, contain the tide
Or claim, where those, whose lives have ended, hide?
 
From vastness, we are gathered for a while,
And back into the vast we each will go.
Oh friend of mine, that I have come to know,
How brief our tryst, before the winds disperse
Both you and I and this—our wisp of verse!

If there's a reason for existence, then
It can't be figured by our mortal wits.
We each are formed—and scattered back to bits
That merge with water, earth and endless sky,
Not ever knowing whence or whither, why.

I saw, upon the trackless ocean, this—
A leaf of autumn, bobbing on the seas
That troughed and crested, driven by the breeze.
Who knew, from where that withered leaf had blown—
Or where, its siblings that it once had known?

We build our villages and towns and roads
And so find comfort in our time on Earth.
But what's the road that sent us to our birth
And where's the village that awaits us when
We each are sent upon our way again?

Annihilation marks the end of life.
The spirit leaves the body, so it seems.
No magic words and no fantastic schemes
Can bring it back, for even just a while
To shed that tear or look and gently smile.

If only we could speak with those we loved
And hold them in our arms and cry and smile—
If only we were given just a while
To make amends, in speech and attitude,
And then let go, in peace and gratitude...

What vanity—those ends that we pursue
Beyond what's needed so we each survive.
And yet, what seeming comfort we derive
In hoping that our work was not in vain,
Although we lived and worked and died in pain.

So come, my friend, and walk with me a while.
Before we part, we each should laugh and cry
At this absurdity, so when we die
We might remember, as our souls disperse,
Our time together and our rhyming verse.

2016 December 4th, Mon. 1:11 am
Northwest Berkeley, California 

The Girl and her Mom and her Green Balloon

 
Single-click on the image for a larger and clearer view. Click on the white X (at the top right of the dark background) to return to this post.

This is best viewed on a regular computer screen (rather than on a mobile phone). 

Thanks to Kirrin and Thierry for permission to use this wonderful image for this post.
----------------------------------------

The Girl and her Mom and her Green Balloon

Maeve and Kirrin, Valença, Portugal, 2016.  Photograph by Thierry
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153705074865146&set=a.10151014774865146.421843.701310145&type=3

the girl and her mom and her green balloon,

and the slanting sun in the afternoon,

and the land and the lake and the town and the hills

and the golden light on the bricks and the sills,

and the one that knows on the grass that grows

and the smiles and the eyes and the nose that glows

2016 September 28th, Thu.

Brooklyn, New York 

As Souls Who're Freed

As Souls Who're Freed

 It always breaks my heart to see
A bird that's caged that once was free.

And so I also take delight
In seeing wheeling birds in flight.

I thank you, Jean, for filming this
And posting it for viewers' bliss.

So too, perhaps, we both shall fly
As souls who're freed, when bodies die.

And if our dying be the end,
We yet at times can still pretend.

So in our dreams our minds can fly,
As gulls and pigeons, through the sky.

And from on high we then might see
The ones below—like you and me.

2016 May 20th, Fri.
Brooklyn, New York

https://www.facebook.com/jeanmarie.offenbacher/videos/10154242368729292/

On Marriage

On Marriage

It seems a marriage gains in strength and lasts,
when eros wanes and plays a lesser part.
For in its time that tide may ebb and yet
the fullness of the bond be unimpaired.

And if that mixing wild of metaphors
has given pause, could one alone suffice
to paint in words a wedding’s aftermath –
that light embrace in which the spouses dance?
 
Their thoughts, their words and most of all their acts
of caring build the friendship and the trust –
the rooms and girders of the house in which
the eros is a guest that comes and goes.
 
A guest that's welcome, one that gives delight –
but still a guest who's free to leave or not –
so all should be, including man and wife,
despite the ring and all it signifies.
 
We seek for permanence – to feel secure,
to give another shelter in our warmth.
And yet we know the winds that blow about
could take with them the ones that we have loved.
 
A structure built on eros might collapse
more easily than one that’s built on trust.
The guest is here tonight, tomorrow gone.
The house remains and waits for her return.
 
******
 .
In all the tumult and the ceaseless flow,
the dwellings couples make are ripples mere.
Yet in that space, however small it seems,
there still is room for all the universe.
 
For each has strength – and when the two are one,
the strengths they each possess are multiplied.
And weakness, each may have. The friend, the spouse
may know it well and yet not stint in love.
 
And two can make a space that one cannot –
a space in which to nurture that which comes,
a space that’s not reserved, with room enough
for laughter, love and all the grief and woe.
 
But some of us are single – never wed
or though once wedded, now no longer so.
And some may pine for what they missed or lost,
and yet survive and even be of cheer.
 
We need our company – we need our friends,
but friendship true is hard for us to find.
And married bliss – or married hell – are things
that few may ever have or bear for long.
 
And when we’re single, we return to homes
that often lack in human company.
A product, this – of that insanity
that empties villages and even towns…

******
   .
But those who marry and remain as joined –
they know the wedding marked a turning point.
They once were two – but then were made as one,
for better or for worse, till death’s divide.

The wedding is remembered and the years
before and after.  Children might be born
or not – and grow to adults, leave, return.
The spinster still outlives her sisters all.

For that divide will come – for some, with death,
for some, before – and only half remain,
with memory that's bittersweet, until
that remnant half in turn to nothing goes.

By chance, we're born.  By chance, we meet and wed,
perchance to then give birth, to nurture, tend –
and then to part, so one is left behind
to mark the time and wait for chanceful death.

So marriage?  “It’s a wondrous thing.” we’re told
by some, “It’s just a vestige of the past.”
by others.  Whom should you and I believe?
I've said my piece before – and now should leave.

And so I end my ode to marriage, though
my knowledge might be scant, and others say,
"He knows as much about it as a priest
who's celibate and yet gives brides advice."

2015 January 29th, Thu.
(some stanzas added Jan. 31st, Sat.)
Brooklyn, New York