Two Poems by Mohibul Aziz

 

The Same Candles

I wonder how could be the same candles

The signs of both joy and sorrow!

It’s actually light, I guess, that marks

The moment of emergence and yet

The moment of departure too.

Every moment is light,

Light of the presence, of the existence,

Of the being and of the constant transcendence—

No moment is stationary: Bergson’s remark.

 

I saw the Hanukkah candles, nine of them,

Lit all night long by the window

Of my friends Yitzchak and Rakheli.

Those candles are the commemoration

Of the recovery of lights in fact!

As Yitzchak and Rakheli played on the dreidel

Awaiting “Nes gadol haya sham”:

“A great miracle happened there”—

I pondered they’re in an eternal candle-race:

A thirst for the never extinguishing lights.

Then came the saddest day of the year: ‘Tisha B’Av’—

The prohibitions were written on the parchment

Of their hearts’ wall:

No eating or drinking;

No washing or bathing;

No application of creams or oils;

No wearing of (leather) shoes;

No marital (sexual) relations.

I was amazed by

The stringent routine of their Day.

This day brings the memories of

The destructions of the temples back.

So the wide-spread lamentations

Make the day gloomy and sad.

In this world the power of the candles

Is proved at least on one day

When the electric lighting is turned off—

I learned candle-light is the mother of all earthly lights.

And it’s not unusual that

Shabbat candle-lighting is done

By the mother of the household.

The day when Rakheli’s great grandfather died

They observed ‘Shiva’ for seven days.

 

The same candles that are lit

For the commemoration of birth

Now represent the death and deceased,

The wick and flame

Represent the body and soul respectively.

I pondered even in the case of millions power electric light

We won’t get wicks and flames.

But as the candle stays straight

It represents the soul—born or gone!

 

Intercontinental

This noon I consumed up some Mauritian fishes

But those Tunas might have migrated from

Madagascar, Reunion or the Seychelles—

I’m not sure.

Last week my dinner was enriched with

The delicious New Zealand lamb stew

And last month I had Thai crabs

That originally fetched from South China Sea.

Who knows the bones and the fleshes of those crabs

Would be afflicted by the radiation

Caused by the undersea nuclear bomb testing of China!

Trepidation overtook me for a while.

Then I had the sundried cranberries

Blueberries sultanas and tomatoes roasted

Under the searing sun of Los Angeles.

The curry I cooked last night was exotically brightened

By the famous Indian masala.

Only last year Christmas my aunt brought me

The heavenly black forest gateau from the UK.

She resides in Canterbury, quite near to

The birthplace of Charles Dickens.

That cake reminded me of the people of Dickens

Who long ago had the same cakes

In The Christmas Carol or in The Old Curiosity shop.

So I reckon I’m the container of

Myriads of ingredients of the lands far and near.

The biblical fruits—

Grape, olive, date, fig, pomegranate and almond—

Added extra nourishments to my blood-flow.

A local lodger, that’s me

Metamorphosed to be intercontinental!

Mohibul Aziz was born in Jessore, Bangladesh in 1962. He permanently lives in Chattogram where he is a Professor of the department of Bengali Language and Literature, University of Chittagong. He is the author of nearly sixty books of various genres such as fiction, novel, essays and poems. All of the books are in Bengali. Private Moments and Resurrection of a Reformist and The Memory-Struck Swan of Cambridge are his three books of poetry published in English. His poems have been published in the Lothlorien Poetry Journal and the Setu Bilingual Journal.