Phirbe Na Go—ফিরবে না গো—Could Words Bring Back?

My niece, Malini  Chakravarty,  had posted, on Facebook, these lines from a Bob Dylan song:

https://www.facebook.com/malini.chakravarty/posts/10154238667818777

"And take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time
Far past the frozen leaves
The haunted frightened trees
Out to the windy bench
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky
With one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea
Circled by the circus sands
With all memory of fate
Driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow"
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At an antipode to that intoxication and revelation in the turbulence of youth, I came upon this hangover and realization in the doldrums of age:  *

Phirbe Na Go

Chot'obe`lar khe`lae ami mo`tto chilam jo`khon,
Jantam ki ei xexer diner dukkho ami to`khon?
Bur'o belae ut'hi e`khon, diner alo dekhi.
Mone po`r'e ko`to ko`tha, bhabi boxe likhi.
Ho`e na lekha. Jibon srote bhexe ge`lo ja,
Jo`toi likhi, phirbe na go kono mo`te ta.

xo`kal 4:19, 18-oi Epril, 2016 khri.
Bruklin, Niu Io`rk
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To hear the audio recording in Google' Chrome browser:
 1) first, click the triangular play button on the right, above;
 2 then click  either: 

   a) that button again to play the audio in the background (on this page); 
   b) or the rectangular button on the left, above, for audio at the Vocaroo site.

The procedure in other browsers might be slightly different.
Vocaroo:  Record music and voice >>
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* For a brief explanation of the Roman transcription scheme used above (and a guide to the pronunciation), please see:
   http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2014/02/bharot-xadhin-indias-freedom.html

The version in the traditional Bengali script is directly below.  A translation into English follows--at the bottom of this post.  The translation is fairly literal, except that the last sentence has been changed into a question.
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ফিরবে না গো

ছোটবেলার খেলায় আমি মত্ত ছিলাম যখন,
জানতাম কি এই শেষের দিনের দুঃখ আমি তখন?
বুড়ো বেলায় উঠি এখন, দিনের আলো দেখি৷
মনে পড়ে কত কথা, ভাবি বসে লিখি৷
হয় ন লেখা৷ জীবন স্রোতে ভেসে গেল যা,
যতই লিখি, ফিরবে না গো কোনো মতে তা৷

সকাল ৪:১৯, ১৮ ই এপ্রিল, ২০১৬ খ্রি
ব্রুক্লিন, নিউয়র্ক
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2016 April 18th, 4:19 am
Brooklyn, New York
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Could Words Bring Back?

When I was busy with my childhood games,
What did I know of the woes of age?
Now, when I wake to the light of the day,
There are things I remember that I think I should write.
They never are written. But could words ever bring
The return of the things that have floated away?

translation added:
2016 May 13th, Fri
Brooklyn, New York

  

He Steps Over Cracks—for Kenneth E. Rich, by Isis Phoenix, with a preface by Tal Nuriel, plus images from friends and a video of Ken by Allus Frank

 
I've met a lot of people in my life, and I can honestly say, without exaggeration, that Kenneth E. Rich was the kindest, most gentle human being I've ever met. It's hard to understand how something so awful can happen to someone so kind. I'm glad to see the outpouring of love for Ken. I have no doubt that Ken made a true and lasting impact on thousands of people while he was alive and that his memory and spirit will live on for a long long time through all of his good deeds and through all of the people that he touched.

--Tal Nuriel
(posted on Ken's Facebook page, October 11, 2015, at 1:24 pm)
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A poem for my dear friend, Kenneth E. Rich. 
Rest well, dear one. 

-- Isis Phoenix

He Steps Over Cracks 

for Ken, by Isis

Dr. Kenneth E. Rich
posted on Facebook by Narisara Vanichanan
photograph: Lynne Goldfarb Leung?
October 11 2015, 8:21 am

  
He steps over cracks in the sidewalk
on the lower east side.
His feet shuffle a little in his tattered brown shoes,
one of the laces always undone or broken.
He steps, some steps coupled shorter
and others almost imperceptibly longer
to avoid his foot falling into a crack and oblivion?
Or worse
hurting that which births and sustains life,
his mother
and perhaps the divine one.
His fingernails are caked
and a bit jagged from the bits of trash
and sidewalk debris he gathers
as he walks. What others discard
he takes responsibility
for picking up the broken bottles and cigarette butts
Food wrappers of disownment.
He cares.
It is a quiet gesture.
Discreet.
He does it even though at times he is embarrassed to do it
He does it because something much larger moves through him
Picking up people’s trash.
Taking responsibility.
Seeing what others do not allow themselves to care enough to see.
He walks over cracks
And always carries a large re-usable bag
with a collection of things inside…books,
cliff bars he gives to the homeless,
receipts and bits of paper with scrawl only he understands,
maybe a sweater, a notebook …
an ipad.
He is, at times, manic, driven,
others somber and still.
He bows to people as he passes and there is
a deep quiet that rests in his system
that others perceive and are affected by
a humility, a quiet beauty like a still pond.
He is the Buddha
walking down the streets of the lower east side.
Stepping over cracks
to honor the Great Mother.

Isis Phoenix
posted on Ken's Facebook page
October 11 at 3:02am 
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Kenneth E. Rich -- younger days
collage posted on Ken's Facebook page by Sonnie Hirsch Carpenter 

Kenneth E. Rich -- Senior Prom, 1982
posted by Ellen Limburg Santistevan on Ken's Facebook page, October 11, 2015, 9:05 am 

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Dr. Kenneth E. Rich, with Rev-Amma Niradhari Mari,
probably at a building of the NYU (or Columbia U?) Medical Center
posted by her at Ken's Facebook page, October 10, 2015, 11:27 pm

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The following is a note and a video of Ken, posted by AllUs Frank at Ken's Facebook page on October 21, 2015 at 3:38 pm.  (I have not included her invitation to join in a celebration of Ken's life October 21-27 in Brooklyn.)

Dearest Beloved Kenneth E. Rich who left his body a week ago, speaks so delicately in this video, upon reading the script of OPEN: a film about UNIAMORY .

Ken was to play the character, ' Gerald. ' He played it profoundly, and I will soo miss his doing so for all of You. I offered him the role an hour into knowing him. Uncannily perfect. Still gleeful in his saying Y E S .

Thank you,
s w e e t love .

https://www.facebook.com/allus.frank/videos/1641930546063346/

Note:  Ken's speech is soft, labored and hesitant in this video, more than usual with him.  He is trying to speak thoughtfully, honestly and from the heart about things that are at the heart of our existence.  But the speech was difficult to follow on my computer.  If you want a child's far louder, more emphatic version of some, at least, of what Ken was struggling to express, here it is:

https://www.facebook.com/BlackPrezMusic/videos/10153560778492357/

Midnight

 Midnight

 In yogic meditation the blind beggar waits
 For the last coin to clink in his rusty old can.

He can't see the streetwalker hovering in hope
For the chance passer-by who just might make her night;

Nor the cop, drunk to stupor and sprawled in a halo
Of spew by the kerb, right below the street lamp;

Nor the dog and the bitch in the lamp-post's precarious
Shadow, conjoined in a quiet coital act.

The temple pujari tots up his day's takings
And locks the cage door on his gilt-edged ward,

Picks a stone off the footpath, hurls it at the dogs,
Crosses over to the woman and takes her by the hand.

Arm around her waist, he leads her to his shack,
Walking past the beggar, flings a fistful of change;

Some jangles on the sidewalk, some clinks in the can;
The mendicant is shaken from his pensive trance.

He scurries round the pavement, gets each last coin in;
Then, spreading out his gunny sack, turns in for the night.

By the kerb, the cop stirs, turns over and snores;
And the deity behind the bars stares, stony-eyed. 

Vivek Khadpekar
Ahmedabad, 1988

By the same author:  Rites of Passage / Vespertinal  

Rites of Passage / Vespertinal

  
Rites of Passage / Vespertinal
  
The seven-horse chariot's done its daily beat; 
And over there, where sky and earth commune,
The evening star sheds limpid, icy fire 
Against a cyclorama amber-blue.
  
A breeze from west, gently insistent, blows 
Streamers of sand off crests of velvet dunes, 
Whispering reminder, prickly on the soul: 
The intimation of a threshold passed.

Through dim and misty distances in time
Loom memories of dreams that went unlived; 
Of songs unsung, of feelings unrevealed; 
Of deeds not done, of promises unkept; 

Of cheery smiles received and not returned; 
Of leaps of faith across uncharted streams 
Landing in quicksand, and being helped from there 
By waiting arms that never stayed for thanks.

And as the canvas is daubed more and more, 
The tints turn muddy, chiaroscuro fades 
To shades of grey, darkly illumined from 
The tunnel's end, a weary age away.

Threescore-and-ten was granted, half is spent. 
What rests is but a half-life of decay, 
Of keeping count of acts, noble and base, 
At every rite of passage on the way. 

Vivek  Khadpekar 
Osian, Thar Desert, Rajasthan
and Benares (Varanasi)
India, 1988/89 
 
By the same author:  Midnight

Vel'ai

      
Vel'ai
     
Silver starlight sings and dreams
The Song of Many and of One
And webs of Singing and of Dreaming
Dance and Weave
the Tapestry of Worlds...

Sparks of Green on rock and earth
Coalesced from Light and Wind,
Ever reaching toward the sun,
Embrace the deep...
and so a Leaf unfurls.
  
Helen, Maryland,
2006 Jan. 29.