February 23rd

Artwork by th lisa

Nobody knew which person or persons unknown had
wept on a bouquet of flowers wrapped in a
handkerchief at the site. And so in the afternoon the salt
of memory floated up from the secret heart of the
wet flowers, as thick as cream. But nobody cast
a glance in that direction.

Then at dawn the trails of bare feet. The terrible middle-
class sorrow-infested nasal whine of harmoniums rose
in the air: 'My brother's blood-soaked...'

A day labourer is angered by this farcical show. A peasant
looks viciously at this evil charade. A beggar giggling
helplessly breaks out into song:

'Allah Allah say brother o prophet make me whole
Life-death fate is in the hands of The Protector. ..'

The song's uproarious laughter reverberates and echoes
in the sky and in the air. But then ends in a sort of
piteous cry. Tears not for the martyrs, but for the living
it is as if someone was sobbing in strangled, low voice.

A terrible smell spreads throughout the city before
evening. With time's coffin before him, holy prayers are
being said by the executioner garbed in a priestly robe. A
resinous depravity manufactured from swine fat is
spreading its wickedness in the air. The syphilitic meat is
dropping in chunks from all the corpses which have
rotted.

All night long I guard the graves of the martyrs to save
them from vultures and jackals.

Comes a time when the professional revelers cease their
merriment. At dawn the next morning, daily-wage
labourers start their machines, their muscles swelling
like healthy engines. I touch them with my hand. Arms
that were crafted out of the last breath of the martyrs.

And the seed the peasants daily sow in their fields, those
very seeds are chased helter-skelter and soulfully
gathered by them from the graves of the martyrs. A root
from one of those seedpods pierces and bursts upward
through the paved stone of the Shaheed Minar. A garland
in one hand, making complete the future necklace of
seeds.

Therefore I was forced to stay awake till the 23rd of
February. Because poets do not desert their posts till
from deep within the rock issues forth a necklace of trees
and plants.

I keep on standing at the Shaheed Minar.....

Farhad Mazhar is a well-known poet. Khademul Islam is literary editor, The Daily Star.