Poetry

Md. Sahedul Islam Hira

Was or Was Not

These days I haven’t been myself.
My Cage was locked within my drawer.
And the bird inside had disappeared in fear.

I don’t know what happens these days around the world!

The sun rose in the morning, or not!

And if it did, was it in the same old West?
Did the mortal night sleep in a quiescent dark?
Or was rewarded with shiny stars and tender light?
Did the color of sky remain blue as ever?
Or it changed, somehow, into another?
Did all humans breathe in the same air?
Or every singles one, just disappeared!

I really wasn’t informed what happened in these days!
But something got me as I took a dive in my routine page.

The grills of my window resembled the visible ribs of a starving child.
And the dust on my mirror reflected the man-made beggar, blind.
The dusk-meal smelted the decomposed body of a forlorn farmer,
While the bricks started telling the harsh story of its long gone workers.

The books in the secret shelf portrayed whitish-black money.
And the red dim light showered the blood of countless raped stories.
Moonlight in my ventilator stresses the ozone holes.
And the unpublished art fails to express peace- the system and its mole.

Young Generation

Young generation!
The ‘this,’ the ‘that,’ Right?
Okay, tell me what is it, actually?
The spring’s orphaned cuckoo,
Or the winter’s naked tree,
Which will be here in a moment, perhaps?
Or maybe not- like the unicorn or ghorar dim.
Which doesn’t even exist!

You know,
I’ve heard this word millions of times.
Sometimes from the leaders of the parliament.
Sometimes from the dreamers of the street.
Sometimes from the fetterless souls of an asleep nation.
Sometimes from the fanciful voice of a dead inspiration.

They were saying young generation is like the scorching heat of summer
which will thaw all society’s atrocity.
It will come to make a difference
“like Kazi Nazrul and Rokeya with a pen and paper
Like Surjo sen and Pritilota with an overbold heart
Like Younus with a great thought
Like Majibur with a mike and ageless speech.”

They even claim that it will stand against all injustice.
It will defeat all quislings like Mir Jafar.
And also will do everything that a country needs.

But when will it come?
When will their dream come true?
Any answer?

Listen now,
Organs of the new, neither will fall from the sky
Nor will arise from the ground.

We are the young generation.
We are their hope.
We have to fulfill their volition- becoming world’s fittest trope.