Rain and wind, rain and wind, day and night.
The day gray, sterile, dark. Lightless,
shadowless. Only the rainy haze, the cloudy half-light and
the whine of trams, the grumble of traffic.

Suppressed weeping in the sky, sighing in the winds.
A long, long day, how far away the night?
Weary hours, languid moments; the shackles of time jangle
endless, tireless.

Night; bleakness in the room, darkness without,
the rain and the wind, the rain and the wind.
Empty, empty is my heart, barren, barren is the night,
but for the angry moaning of a sleepless city.

Bleakness in my heart, howling in the city, darkness in the sky.
Shadows, winds, voices, murmurs, angry whispers, deep sighs
in the city, in the empty room, in the rain-laden darkness,
in the jangling of time's shackles,
all night, all day.

The day is bleak, silent like a bog. The night too is dumb;
nothing remains. Nothing, nothing.
The rain's murky veil, the wind and the city's wailing
mask creation. Nothing remains. I am alone. Alone.

- Buddhadeva Bose
(Translated by Nandini Gupta)

~~~

It's been raining again. This last week we've had just one perfect sunny day and I'm just about ready to climb the walls! Anyway I was scouring the Net for good, strong, really into it rain poetry, the kind that knows rain can wreak havoc on a person's sense of wellbeing and not the sugary Oh-how-I love-the-rain kind of insipidity. And voila, I came across this amazing poem. I must admit I've left out some parts at the end so if anyone wants to read it in its entirety, it's at parabaas.com in the translations section.