Spring Fever

I love the months of March and April. Admittedly, the daily temperature sometimes dips below the freezing point and we bundle up and rather stay indoors, there is increasingly more sunlight and a silent whisper is in the air that spring is just around the corner. We can finally say goodbye to winter.
Before I bid adieu to snow, low wind chills, and long dark nights, a few kind words must be said for Winter. My readers must forgive me if they find my homage to Winter a little surreal, but one must remember that many centuries ago, William Shakespeare penned these beautiful lines in his poem “Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Winds”:
Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.   

On the positive side, winter is also the season when we enjoy our time reflecting and brooding. And, for Bengalis like us, many of our best moments and memories are linked with Tagore, his songs and poetry, and his heart-wrenching novels. Many years ago, a friend introduced me to Tagore's poem “hothath dekha”.  While I am sure many of my readers are familiar with this poem, some others might have missed it. The poem begins with a chance encounter between two old friends in a moving train compartment. From the narrative one can guess that there was once a very close relationship between the man and the woman, who asks the eternal question, “Amader gechhey jey din, ekey bareye ki gechey, kichhuee ki ney baki?” (Those days we had together, are they all lost? Is here nothing of the feelings we had for each other?)
Like Tagore, I remember many of the people I've met over the years, some remarkable and some not so, and they are always there, like the stars hidden during the day. I remember many of the people who reside in the shadows: parents, friends, relatives, acquaintances, teachers, students, and colleagues. I have a photo gallery in my house where we have pictures of many of them and like Tagore, they truly adorn my firmament, hidden or not:
I press my ears deep into my own heart
To listen to the concealed sob and laughter of them who reside secretly
Again and again.
Wasps lose hope wandering in vain for the secret blue lotus,
Lonesome nocturnal birds sing along losing a companion in the dark.
Again and again.
I know not who that is, can not follow him either,
Can only see a glimpse of him, intuition tells me something.
His message sometimes are converted to speech with my words,
O, I know, he sends me his messages secretly through expressions of songs.
With the advent of spring, Boston is getting ready for this year's Poetry Month which is observed in April. National Poetry Month is a month-long, national celebration of poetry, first introduced in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry. In 1999, UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) declared March 21 to be World Poetry Day. The purpose of the day is to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry throughout the world and, as the UNESCO session declaring the day says, to “give fresh recognition and impetus to national, regional and international poetry movements.”
Bengalis in this area have already announced the dates for the annual poetry reading event, Apriler Poddo Paath, the gala event which takes place this year on April 12th. Then there is the Boston Poetry Slam whose mission is to “foster new work and new voices in performance poetry, to drive the evolution of the genre, and to promote poetry to the widest and most diverse audience possible using the nurturing environment of the open mic, the appeal of compelling featured poets, and the competition of poetry slam.”
In a sister city not too far from here, Chicago is celebrating National Poetry Month by hosting a world gathering of poets. “The World Record”, a collection of autographed edition of poems handwritten in the native languages of over a hundred contemporary poets including Seamus Heaney, Qassim Haddad, Selina Tusitala, and Kay Ryan, to name a few, is on view at the Poetry Foundation until April 30.
Other events in the past month include large gatherings of Bostonians from all walks of life to pay tribute to actress Suchitra Sen (March 8th), singer Nita Moholanobish (March 1st), and the martyrs of the Language Movement (February 22nd). Each of these well-attended memorials brought together artistes, musicians, poets, and many local literary stars. On each occasion, as we remembered these outstanding people and celebrated their outstanding lives, we knew that even if they had gone from sight they are always there in our hearts. Or, to say it in the immortal words of Tagore, “Raater shob taraee achhey diner alor gobhierey” (“the stars are there hidden behind the harsh lights of daytime”).

Dr. Abdullah Shibli lives and works in  Boston, USA