Two poems

Kinship

Octavio Paz

I am a human, my transient life is
Cocooned in an endless, everexpanding night.
Yet I look up to see
Stars writing on the wall of sky.
I don’t follow their language, but I know
My story too is being written there,
And at this precise moment,
Throughout the sky
Someone is reciting
The letters of my name.



A song of wonder

Rabindranath Tagore

I’ve found my space
In a sky filled with suns and stars,
In a cosmos brimming with life.
From a spring of wonder
Flow out my songs.

In a surge of endless time,
The universe rolls on a tidal wave
And the torrent is felt
In bloodstreams deep in my veins.

Walking on a jungle trail,
I’ve stepped out on grass
My mind leaps out in joy
As a waft of flowers drifts by.
Bliss is scattered all around!

I’ve tried to hear and see
I’ve poured my life out on this world
Looked out for the unknown in the common.
From the spring of wonder
Flow out my songs..

[The Octavio Paz poem has been translated from a Bengali translation of the original by my friend Soumya Shankar Mitra]