Mysteries of Memory
30 December 1960, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Soundless rhythmless snow’s
unbroken blossom-shower.
The entire world is strewn
with white flowers, like a corpse. And then
you’re nowhere to be seen.
Everywhere I hear your name being called,
tracks of searching feet open up in the whiteness, deep
like mysterious depressions. . .
A green shrub gradually
turns into a white stone hill.
Looking in that direction, I know you can’t be seen.
Time’s snows falling without limit,
without respite. Dressing up
the corpse of the present
in the mysteries of memory,
we’re drowning, we’re losing ourselves,
we’re being blotted out.
Translated by Carolyne Wright and Sunil B. Ray with the author.
Published in Bengali in Swāgata Devdūt (Welcome, Angel). Kolkata:
Krittibas Prakashani, 1971.
Copyright by Nabaneeta Dev Sen.
Contributor’s
notes: Carolyne Wright
Contributor’s notes: Nabaneeta Dev Sen
House