The Pretense of Gathering Pebbles by the Shore

The Pretense of Gathering Pebbles by the Shore
Syed Kawsar Jamal
Nothing do I know, yet I hang everywhere my portrait,
Serious and grave, as if it knows all -
On which, throughout the day, collects dust;
And termites crump and chitter on each frame and
gnaw.
Descends something like a fog, and shrouds the face.
Where is my face?
Recognize I can’t, the face within.
Who is the more ignorant,
This coating of black, or this I?
Surely the ocean knows and remembers the pebbles
gathering on its shores. Out of fear, I distance myself
from all the tales of the ocean.
What remains is just that glow, that notion;
And sometimes when impertinence weighs upon me,
I wish I could pick out from light just its delusion.
My whole range of vision gets lit up and there looms
the red of the Krishnachuras.
However much I walk, I see wisdom emerge
breaking the hard shells of time.
In between all this, will be born an omnivorous insect
That will eat into the pages
of all the poetry books of the world,
and will extract out
the accumulated essence of grey matter.
Do not, as yet, think me to be an omnivore.
(Translated from Bengali by Basant Rungta)