Shahriar Kabir, what a great love for this land is stored in your heart!
Green grass, shrubs and creepers, fragrant flowers,
Vast wide meadows, swiftly flowing rivers,
many-hued birds flying in the sky-
they all know of it, but those who know best
are the thousands of fighting men and women of this land.
The history of our liberation lives eternally in your consciousness.

When your daughter burst into tears in front of the prison-house
holding your manacled hands in her own
tears fell from the dark clouds sailing in the sky of Bengal.

They have kept you captive in a dark cell
but they do not know that even the most miserly room,
a room blind from birth,
can be flooded by your inner light in a moment’s time.

The walls of the prisonhouse, we know, are very tall.
But you are much taller than those sturdy and dark walls.
It is impossible for them to attain your height.
No prisonguard can have the instrument needed to measure it.

You are neither a brigand nor a thief.
Nothing can prompt you to scale the walls of the prison and be free.
You are a hero, your way is that of a victorious warrior.

Shahriar, when you will come out of the prison gate
walking heroically, wearing truth’s crown on your head,
trampling under your feet all ignoble lies
many eager and joyous hands will be there to throw
hundreds of garlands around your neck,
while I shall be looking at you with my mind’s eyes,
and the lines of poem, redolent with the warmth
of my heart, will long to caress you with my love.

Dhaka, 12 December, 2001