সুতো সুতো, ফেনা ফেনা

Threadlike, Foamlike

Yashodhara Ray Chaudhuri

গৌতম চক্রবর্তী
অনুবাদ কবিতা

The way thoughts arrive, like threads—
I write them down that way.
Yet they never become a weaving.

Thoughts are like foam—
new from the tiniest spark,
full of motion. How fragile!
A moment of sorrow.

I dream of foam,
I dream of water too.
Know that the rest is soap.
My whole being aches for soap.

Every day I open different bottles—
I smell them, touch them, examine them: is there soap?
I mistake shampoo for soap.
In every liquid I search and search for foam—only foam.

These gatherings of foam—
these are my words, endlessly foam-filled.
In night’s sleep I have lost
the fresh stirrings of words—waves, foamy.

Only the stains remain,
like the marks foam leaves on sand.
After the washing of hands
rough skin alone is left behind

I will gain nothing—
nothing except this daily longing.
New awakenings of understanding—
those I lost in dreams, lost without direction.

The nature of homeless foam,
drifting on the crests of waves—
this life has become nothing more
than breaking and falling upon the shore.