I WOKE AND found his letter with the morning.
I do not know what it says, for I cannot read.
I shall leave the wise man alone with his books, I shall not trouble him, for who knows if he can read what the letter says.
Let me hold it to my forehead and press it to my heart.
When the night grows still and stars come out one by one I will spread it on my lap and stay silent.
The rustling leaves will read it aloud to me, the rushing stream will chant it, and the seven wise stars will sing it to me from the sky.
I cannot find what I seek, I cannot understand what I would lean but this unread letter has lightened my burdens and turned my though into songs.

THE SANTAL woman hurries up and down the gravelled path under the
shimool tree; a coarse grey sari closely twines her slender limbs, dark and compact; its red border sweeping across the air with the flaming red magic of the palash flower.
Some absent-minded divine designer, while fashioning a black bird
with the stuff of the July cloud and the lightning flash, must have improvised unawares this woman's form; her impulsive wings hidden within, her nimble steps uniting in them a woman's walk and a bird's flight.
With a few lacquer bangles on her exquisitely modelled arms and a
basket full of loose earth on her head, she flits across the gravel-red path under the shimool tree.
The lingering winter has finished its errand. The casual breath
of the south is beginning to tease the austerity of the cold month. On the himjhuri branches the leaves are taking the golden tint of a rich decay.
The ripe fruits are strewn over the amlaki grove where the rowdy boys crowd to pillage them. Swarms of dead leaves and dust are capering in a ghastly whirl following sudden caprices of the wind.
The building of my mud house has commenced and labourers are busy
raising the walls. The distant whistle announces the passing of the train along the railway cutting, and the dingdong of the bell is heard from the neighbouring school.
I sit on my terrace watching the young woman foiling at her task
hour after hour. My heart is touched with shame when I feel that the woman's service sacredly ordained for her loved ones, its dignity soiled by the market price, should have been robbed by me with the help of a few pieces of copper.

যে রাতে মোর দুয়ারগুলি
               ভাঙল ঝড়ে
জানি নাই তো তুমি এলে
               আমার ঘরে।
      সব যে হয়ে গেল কালো,
      নিবে গেল দীপের আলো,
আকাশপানে হাত বাড়ালেম
                   কাহার তরে।
অন্ধকারে রইনু পড়ে
               স্বপন-মানি।
ঝড় যে তোমার জয়ধ্বজা
               তাই কি জানি।
      সকালবেলায় চেয়ে দেখি
      দাঁড়িয়ে আছ তুমি এ কি
ঘরভরা মোর শূন্যতারি
               বুকের 'পরে।