No Man's Land

These walls are still tainted red. 

An eye for an eye has made them red. 

And then I see your eyes! 

Immersed in the blue of this sky. 

They whisper about the fence. 

The fence that lies there partitioning a nation.  

The breeze runs through it, doesn’t it? 

So don’t I see light? As shadows of midnight creep in? 

I am afraid! 

My dark, lonely room hangs on that barbed wire. 

Memories crowd my dreams as I wander into the orphaned land. 

My heart kneels to Time.

Dew-drops. Time stops. 

And I walk the path I see in your eyes. 

All alone. 

Through the fence. 

Through the dense darkness of human misdeeds. 

Into that nameless space blindly lit by your light. 

Into that desolate no man’s land.

Go tell them. 

That the new map they made now rests among torn dreams and nostalgia. 

The poems rot. 

And the songs are wasted.

Time blurs everything. 

Do I even remember you anymore? 

I hang on this barbed wire. 

And wonder if Death feels like this no man’s land. 

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* This poem is a figurative translation of the lyrics of a very popular rock song in Bengali. No copyright infringement intended.