Two Poems by Umma Habiba
From Bangladesh, a poster bleeds red ink; hills devour flesh. Ropes tremble.…
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From ULR
Issue 14 – WITNESS
The Ultimate Truth and 2 other poems
Caged tiger and human, twinned in a cycle of death and rebirth, lamenting the violence of nature's "divine duties" in a war-torn
Original Language: Bangla
The Ultimate Truth
I am in the tiger’s cage
And the tiger in mine
We were born in the same womb
But now
both of us are keen to feast on the other
Mother Nature said
The seed of a new life lies in death
And that is the ultimate truth
And that is why we kill one another
And keep sowing seeds
And at the deathbed of the deceased sibling
We lament
Forgive me oh dear tiger
Forgive me oh dear man
Forgive me oh dear flower
Forgive me oh dear fruit
Forgive me oh dear seed
We were just fulfilling our divine duties
War
Gunshot
And the birds fly away
But the men
Remain still
Pointing gun
At each other
Rebirth
In the other life, I was dust
For the kids to play with
In the other life, I was a yellow flower
On the green bushes on the riverbanks
In the other life, I made so many mistakes that
In this life, I had to be born as a human
Afroja Shoma
Afroja Shoma is a poet, essayist, journalist and academic from Dhaka, Bangladesh. An Assistant Professor at the American International University of Bangladesh (AIUB), she previously worked for BBC Bangla and Deutsche Welle. She has five books of poetry to her credit and has won numerous literary awards for her work.
Quamrul Hassan
Quamrul Hassan is an MFA Candidate at the University of Arkansas’s Program in Creative Writing and Translation. A graduate of the University of Dhaka’s Department of English, his books of haiku — Spring Moon (2011) and Hyaku Haiku (2016) — have been both popular and critically acclaimed. At present, he is translating a collection of contemporary Bangladeshi poetry and a memoir, besides working on his debut novel and the third book of haiku.