Grass
(Ghāsh)
~ Jibanananda Das
(Translated by Buddhadeva Bose)
The world this morning is filled with soft green grass, gentle like green lemon-leaves,
Like an unripe orange it is—this green grass—as fragrant—with the deer ripping it off with teeth.
How I wish I too could drink the fragrance of this grass, like some greenish wine, chalice after chalice,
Could squeeze the flesh of this grass, rub my eyes against its eyes and my feathers against its plumage,
Could descend from the savory darkness of some warm
grassmother’s flesh and be born as grass within the grass.
*** ***
This is my last post about my current India travel. I leave tomorrow. What better way to remember Bengal than with the pensive poems of JIbanananda Das? Drove off to the villages today. Puja is coming. The rural landscape is green with paddy, and the sides of the roads are adorned with Kash flowers. The festive air is still a bit too humid, but the clouds are turning whiter and smaller, the sky is becoming clearer each day, whispering sweet nothingness to the ponds rich from the gifts of monsoon. The drums are out, they have begun playing their hypnotic rhythm in Bengal’s heart. I am leaving. The days of Bengal ripen with the songs and laughter of puja, and it will hardly reach my ear many seas away.
