Broken Words II: ভাঙা শব্দ -দ্বিতীয় পর্ব
In the diaspora, you are also a poet, sowing language into the ground
The second annual, fragmented, collective poem by the Bangladeshi Identity Project Team. Since the inception of BIP, of ROBI, our goal has been to celebrate our language, culture, and history while acknowledging the hardships of the diaspora, the downfalls, and the recovery. These are simply pieces of our roots there, our roots here, and a reconvening of solidarity through language.
In a home far away, my mother / grows / a backyard. Three trees, one / Krishnochura, waiting, for her children to / Blossom. / In a land lifetimes / away, I am trying / to grow /a backbone. Non-immigrant work visa, “Please check the / ‘Alien’ box,” waiting, for my roots to / Become / in a land, void of water
-Samira
The shame of not fully grasping / A language so beautiful / A longing for understanding / of what it means to be / Your father’s son / His country’s blood coursing through / One of poets and artists / Unable to tell the stories in / A language so beautiful / That blood was lost for it / His language / From a country that he calls yours / The shame of not fully grasping / A language that made you / Made worse by living in a country / That others you
-Tarun
When we lost the soil we were planted in / We grasped the moisture from the air — / It does not choke us — the oxygen — we do not let it drown us / Here, my skin reminds me of the soil back home / How deep my roots ran in that soil / How far they grew inside me in its absence.
-Eva
Unable to speak your mother’s tongues, unable to / Know your father’s histories. Unable to / Grasp onto your roots, now lost somewhere / Deep in the soil, the roots disappear into the abyss. / Crushing waves of guilt inundate within / It’s no one’s fault particularly, but then it is / Somewhere somehow sometime we lost / No one’s fault. Things just are. Life just is. / Clutch onto those broken words of your mother / Those fractured stories of your father / For one day, your children will inquire / Curiosity teeming within them. / No one’s fault. Things just are. Life just is.
-Rifat
Somewhere there is a humanity without us in it / In that place, banana trees are limbs, and the ground / Is lal mati, is body — is torn & red & willing to heal.
-Farah
Recognizing each other’s / Humanity / I find myself sifting through their histories / Desperate to make up for years of ambivalence / Running through mazes of their pasts / Choices and sacrifices / To feel closer / To locate my essence / in the web of narratives weaved together / Despite / The years of Silence / I continue to Run / We will find Home together / Never fully here nor there / But somewhere in Between / A scrapbook of histories and marathons / We will find it Together
-Syeda
In my dream, we are walking / through shorisha khet (mustard fields) / On a land we left / In my dream, my Father recites / verses / foreign to my friends / I wonder which language I respond in / when I am asked
“Tumi-o ki kobi?” (“Are you also a poet?”)
-Farzana
