Once she swam over the field like a heron, now the old woman
wearing plain white cloth thinks she is like a cow; a bee comes
flying
to settle on the surface of the scalded pitcher; just at noon on the
path
through the acacia grove darkness descends; sometimes she lifts
on to her head
sheaves of rice; she looks for water at the neck of the dry pitcher,
she gives
rice-water to the sick dog and the barren cow; she kneels and hides
her face
in the straw; in the distance the cracks in the feet of the village
wives
meet the field’s cracks; at twilight jackals call; a girl reads the
Gita
and, as drum and ektara tune up, goes swimming like the heron
over the white fields of Ranipur village; a patchwork of ripe
berries
is spread over the empty courtyard; and in the turmeric grove
the young girl of long ago has become a blind grandmother; she
knows
no science, but she can grow the aparajita vine over the sunny
thatched house
and she knows the cow is old; still, when evening thickens
cow and grandmother are peaceful together in the grass, in the
grasses’ singing.
Translated from the Bangla by Marian Maddern