My Own True Family By Ted Hughes

My own true family

Ted Hughes

Once I crept in an oakwood – I was looking for a stag.
একদা আমি হামাগুড়ি দিয়ে একটি ওক বনে প্রবেশ করলাম-- আমি খুজছিলাম একটি ছেলে হরিণ।

I met an old woman there – all knobbly stick and rag.
আমার সাক্ষাৎ হলো একজন বৃদ্ধা মহিলার সাথে সেখানে-- তার নড়বড়ে শরীরে রয়েছে লাঠি এবং জীর্ণ কাপড়।

She said; 'I have your secret here inside my little bag.'
তিনি বললেন, 'আমার এই ছোট্ট ব্যাগের মধ্যে রয়েছে তোমার সমস্ত রহস্য।'

Then she began to cackle and I began to quake.
তারপর তিনি ফোকলা হাসি হাসতে শুরু করলেন এবং আমি কাপতে শুরু করলাম।

She opened up her little bag and I came twice awake –
তিনি তার ছোট্ট ব্যাগটি খুললেন এবং আমি দ্বিতীয়বারের জন্য জেগে উঠলাম--

Surrounded by a staring tribe and me tied to a stake.
(দেখলাম) আমি ঘেরাও হয়ে আছি একভাবে তাকিয়ে থাকা উপজাতিদের দ্বারা এবং আমি একটি খুঁটিতে বাঁধা রয়েছি।

They said: 'We are the oak-trees and your own true family.
তারা বলল: 'আমরা হলাম ওক গাছ এবং তোমার সত্যি কারের পরিবার।

We are chopped down, we are torn up, you do not blink an eye.
আমাদের কেটে ফেলা হয়, আমাদের ছিঁড়ে ফেলা হয় , তোমরা একবারও দৃষ্টিপাত করো না।

Unless you make a promise now – now you are going to die.
যদি না তুমি একটি প্রতিজ্ঞা করো -- তাহলে এখন তুমি মরবে তুমি।

'Whenever you see an oak-tree felled, swear now you will plant two.
যখনই তুমি দেখবে একটি ওক গাছ কাটা হয়েছে, প্রতিজ্ঞা করো এখন, তুমি দুটি গাছ লাগাবে।

Unless you swear the black oak bark will wrinkle over you
যদি প্রতিজ্ঞ না করো, তাহলে কালো ওক গাছের বাকল তোমায় জড়িয়ে ধরবে

And root you among the oaks where you were born but never grew.
এবং তোমায় অক গাছের মাঝে পুতে দেব যেখানে তুমি জন্মেছিলে কিন্তু কখনোই বেড়ে ওঠো নি।

This was my dream beneath the boughs, the dream that altered me.
এটি ছিল গাছের ডালের নিচে আমার স্বপ্ন, যে স্বপ্ন আমাকে পরিবর্তন করে দিয়েছিল।

When I came out of the oakwood, back to human company,
যখন আমি ওক বন থেকে বেরিয়ে এলাম মানবজাতির সঙ্গ তে

My walk was the walk of a human child, but my heart was a tree.
তখন আমার হাঁটা ছিল একজন মানব শিশুর হাঁটার মতো, কিন্তু আমার হৃদয় টি ছিল একটি গাছের মত।

Analysis of the poem  : The poet Ted Hughes has presented a harsh cruelty of human towards tree. Here the poet shows how we ignore the importance of trees and deforest them discarding the casualty of it. Trees are the pillar of our life. We can not live for a single moment without trees. Trees give us Oxygen, fruit, food, wood etc. But we does not show any sympathy for them. We forget that our sweet world is livable only for tree. Rather, we cut them indiscriminately. Throughout this poem, the poet has shown how and why we should treat trees like our own true family members and as well as how the trees feel when we torture them, kill them.

         At the very beginning of the poem, we see that a young child (may be the poet himself) creeps in an oak wood in search of a male deer. At that very moment he meets an old lady looking supernatural. She is unsteady on her stick and she has rag on her body. She mysteriously informs the child that she holds the secret of his life inside her little bag. Her loud cackle makes him horrid and quake and she opens her little bag. Immediately, something happens to the child as if he has taken birth for the second time with different feelings and knowledge and he discovers himself surrounded by a staring tribe and tied to a stake. These tribes are none but the oak trees. Those oak trees announce themselves as the true family members of human beings because like genuine family members they are protecting our live and our natural environment. The oak trees complain to the child against human being. They states that we, the human beings cut, torn up trees for our own sake and none as well as that child does not show any sympathy, care to tree. Now oak trees have confined him and want a promise from him that he have to plant two tree when he sees an oak tree felled. The trees threaten the child if he does not swear, they will wrap him with black oak-bark and root him among the oak trees in the soil where he will not able to move and remain there till his death.

         At last the poet reveals that actually the child is asleep beneath the boughs oak trees and it is nothing but his dream. That dream alters the child mentally. When he comes out of the wood, he can realize that though his walk, talking are like human, his heart becomes a heart of a tree that can feel the pain of trees. Thus the poet delivers a message that we all should protect tree and stop felling of trees for the sake of our existence on our sweet world.