I Won't Let You Go by Rabindranath Tagore Ketaki Kushari Dyson Page B

absent? 
                  The spring breeze    with its magic breath
                        may well set your heart on fire
                  and resurrect    within your breast
                        slumbering desires.
                  Doleful girl    in this lonely woodland,
                        what will you do, my darling?
                  How will you spend    your time when I’m gone?
    BRIDE .           I’ll arrange a dolls’ wedding. 
    [Ghazipur, 6 July 1888]

I Won’t Let You Go
    The carriage stands at the door. It is midday.
    The autumn sun is gradually gathering strength.
    The noon wind blows the dust on the deserted
    village path. Beneath a cool peepul
    an ancient, weary beggar-woman sleeps
    on a tattered cloth. All is hushed and still
    and shines brilliantly – like a sun-lit night.
    Only in my home there’s neither siesta nor rest.
    Ashwin’s gone. The Puja vacation’s ended.
    I’ve to return to the far-off place where I work.
    Servants, busybodies, shout and fuss
    with ropes and strings, tying packages sprawled
    in this room and that, all over the house.
    The lady of the house, her heart heavy as a stone,
    her eyes moist, nevertheless has no time
    to shed tears, no, not a minute: she has
    too much to organise, rushes about,
    extremely busy, and though there already is
    too much baggage, she reckons it’s not enough.
    ‘Look,’ I say, ‘what on earth shall I do with these –
    so many stewpots, jugs, bowls, casseroles,
    bedclothes, bottles, boxes? Let me take
    a few and leave the rest behind.’
                                     Nobody pays
    the slightest attention to what I say. ‘You might
    suddenly feel the need for this or that
    and where then would you find it far from home?
    Golden moong beans, long-grain rice, betel leaves,
    areca-nuts; in that bowl, covered, a few blocks
    of date-palm molasses; firm ripe coconuts;
    two containers of fine mustard oil;
    dried mango, mango-cakes; milk – two seers –
    and in these jars and bottles your medicines.
    Some sweet goodies I’ve left inside this bowl.
    For goodness’s sake, do eat them, don’t forget them.’
    I realise it would be useless to argue with her.
    There it is, my luggage, piled high as a mountain.
    I look at the clock, then look back at the face
    of my beloved, and gently say, ‘Bye then.’
    Quickly she turns her face away, head bent,
    and pulls the end of her sari over her eyes
    to hide her tears, for tears are inauspicious.
    By the front door sits my daughter, four years old,
    low in spirits, who, on any other day,
    would have had her bath well completed by now,
    and with two mouthfuls of lunch would have succumbed
    to drowsiness in her eyelids, but who, today,
    neglected by her mother, has neither bathed
    nor lunched yet. Like a shadow she has
    kept close to me all morning, observing
    the fuss of the packing, silent, wide-eyed.
    Weary now, and sunk in some thought of hers,
    she sits by the front door quietly, without a word.
    ‘Goodbye then, poppet,’ when I say,
    she simply replies, sad-eyed, her face grave:
    ‘I won’t let you go.’ That is all.
    She sits where she is, makes not the slightest attempt
    to either hold my arm or close the door,
    but only with her heart’s right, given by love,
    proclaims her stand: ‘I won’t let you go.’
    Yet in the end the time comes when, alas,
    she has to let me go.
                          Foolish girl, my
    daughter, who gave you the strength
    to make such a statement, so bold, so self-assured –
    ‘I won’t let you go’? Whom will you,
    in this universe, with two little hands
    hold back, proud girl, and against whom fight,
    with that tiny weary body of yours by the door,
    that stock of love in your heart your only arms?
    Nervously, shyly, urged by our pain within,
    we can but express our innermost