She stands in front of the canvas and stares.

Recollections of her childhood memories flash.

Her rendezvous with the flora and fauna of Sundarbans;

her eye contact with the Royal Bengal tiger linger on.

Ah! the breeze and nature's playful song,

singing a lullaby to her innocent mind.

Down the memory lane all comes flooded as in a dream:

the steamboat engine and the rough water tides.

Fifty years of separation from her birth country, she sighs.

Her paintings speak of her love divine

of a country that she left behind.

Visitors stare, praises abound;

tears roll down, she is flooded with the pressmen around.

She smiles and gives a valiant look.

Now in a far off land she resides;

She has not left Bangladesh, her motherland, behind.

Treasured in the heart, locked with a feather key;

floating feathers of  her past life, she feels free.

The meaning of her life she has found at last.

Life is full of echoes and contrast. 

Connected with the invisible cord

Life plays on different beautiful chords.

Tasneem Hossain, Director, Continuing Education Centre (CEC), is a multilingual poet, columnist, op-ed and fiction writer, translator, and training consultant.