The stains of blood: B.S.Hate

B.S.Hate                                                                                

The stains of blood

Today, if you pause here in the middle of the twentieth century,

You will observe the wounds

That have festered and bled for centuries.

They are stains

That you have admired volubly as historically inevitable.

Fields with ripening crops, orchards bursting with fruit,

Emerald green meadows, chimneys of clothe mills,

Factories producing a thousand delights, machines in mines,

Skyscrapers peeping into space:

Capital tons ad mansions where,

On the spacious terraces, the seats of power are set out in a row,

With no end to the traffic of their occupants:

As you set off all this opulence, don’t forget to observe

The footprints of each generation lashed by the wind and the rain,

Burnt in the sun.

One after the other, all are ground in the mill;

All tread along the river of time

With no change in their condition- with their hands empty:

The thorn of each sorrow they have endured

Fastens into the heart of each great man;

On the bank of the river of opulence

You may observe, beneath the footprints,

The stains of blood.

Translated by Vilas Sarang