My song

Amitabha Mukerjee

The time is nigh now, take me back
To the heartland of the world where I was born.
Tempt me no more with your tender persuasions -
It is much too late already.

Let me walk in the dusty streets of this city,
Let me mingle with the evening crowd.
My dress looks strange, O fellow traveller?
Fear not, I am one of you,
Long have I lived in lands afar,
All by myself, and grown different.
What name shall I call you by, my friend,
Tell me, do not fear.

The day I was born, my mother
Why did she give me this flute enchanted!
Such music I learned to play on it -
Engrossed in myself I left the world behind
And wandered in a dreamland all my own.
The music that lives on my fingers now,
O beauteous tune,
Let your exuberance flow
Into the the tired streams of this gray land
Let loose the tumultous joys of life
Let the spires ring out with song.
Perchance a stray melody will reach these weary hearts,
And stir within their deepest soul
A single note
Of carefree laughter, exquisite.

All my years of solitude
I will have lived for this fleeting moment.

A loose translation from "ebar firAo more" by Tagore (Rochester, 3/86)