Bengali Poetry (Translated)

Let the ghosts triumph!

He wrote.
Poetry, prose,
horse's eggs...
All these things he wrote.

Never published,
just wrote—
without carrying
the burden of bondage.

Nothing came of it,
yet still he wrote.
No obligation to impress
or to swallow pride.
A free man, and even more—
a free writer.

The writer who cares nothing
for his own age or eternity
never mortgages his mind
to anyone at all,
not even to himself.

Writing keeps the heart well.
His own heart, others' hearts.
Even when others' hearts stayed unwell
he wrote from the urgency of living.

Money for writing,
joy for writing—
choosing neither
of these two,
he wrote
because he couldn't bear not to write.

Those who didn't write
would say,
If we were such woodpeckers, we too could...

Hearing all, understanding all,
he said nothing,
because he wrote.

He who writes knows how to forgive
others' envy.
He who writes knows how to accept
God's favoritism.

To want to write
requires not time or busyness,
but knowing how to write;
even more necessary—
not knowing how to live without writing.

He who has the power,
ghosts provide his time.
He who lacks it,
his excuses... ghosts provide those too!

Victory to the ghosts!
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