Suddenly,
I heard in the evening sky,
The sound of thunders in the open expanse
Darting into the distance
A flock of geese flying by.
Intoxicated by the storm,
Your wings flapped
In gales of delight,
Arousing waves of wonder
Across the sky.
O wandering wings!
Your message fluttered
In the soul of the universe that day
“Not here, not here, but somewhere far away”

The above is an excerpt from Balakaby by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). Translated by Fakrul Alam

Notes

Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941) is widely regarded as the outstanding creative artist of early 20th-century India. In a career spanning six decades, he wrote prose,poems, essays, plays and even painted. Although he wrote almost all conceivable literary forms, the appellation which stuck on him by his readers is that of a poet. Indeed, his own people christened him viswa-kabi, or “the universal poet” soon after he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, the first non-European to do so.