Classroom - a Poem

Classroom

By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)

September 12, 2009

A rainy and cold morning

Of waning summer. Boys and girls

Wearing the blue sky uniforms

Reading the poetry of Tagore.

The classroom looks serene. In the blackboard

Imprint of white chalks

Measuring the rhymes and similes

Dissected stanza’s rustic glamour.

The teacher with neatly parted receding hair

And large spectacle hanging from nose

Is pacing from one corner to another

Reciting the pleasing poem in soothing voice.

The boys and girls are following the teacher

Each word, each pause and tribulation

Bouncing off the rhythmic lyric

Shouting and murmuring the opening words:

“It’s the morning! Open the Door!”

(Bhor Holo! Dor Kholo!)

A rainy and cold morning

Of waning summer. Boys and girls

Wearing the blue sky uniforms

Reading the poetry of Tagore.

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Dedicated to the Bangla and English literature teachers of University Laboratory School at Dhaka. Inspired by poem Memory from Childhood by poet Antonio Machado, translated in English by Robert Bly.

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