The Cold Drying Sun
Written / Narrated By Bangladesh-American Poet Hassanal Abdullah
The words time and self-reliance often emerge in our thoughts, though we are all essentially domestic animals of some raucous rulers. Cages, therefore, are the justified domicile of our healthy endurance. Though we occasionally get out of the cage and tweet once or twice for a little while, we in fact soothe happiness swishing over the cage-walls in flirtations, rehearsing emotional songs that bring forth instantaneous tears. There is no difference between weeping and the subdued words of those lyrics. People who regularly think about their wives and children, emit fear of eating egg-yokes, and devour soft bird meat; they, in reality, are always against being long-sighted. Day and night, they keep themselves busy kneeling down in front of torture and injustice. And when they hear about finding a new planet in outer space that is similar to earth, they await a new revelation or a new prophet, staring curiously with their big wide eyes as if they were a butterfly sitting on a kolmi flower on a vast village pond. Meanwhile, bin Laden’s third wife passionately states in deposition how nervous they were living in the same cage-like room for five long years.
Translated from the Bengali by Ekok Soubir and the Poet