Endless Life

In the stream of endless death
Drifts endless life
At every step it is beset
By dangers and crises
Without any purpose
Why this ceaseless plying of this aimless boat
To reach what beaches
Of what unknown seas
And who directs it all!
This much only I know
Innumerable creatures
Are always on the move 
To give their something to someone
On their way often they pause
Who remains behind to receive
Also disappears after some time.
In the grip of death everything seems fruitless
Yet among this futility
Everything doesn’t end
Something remains.
To their last they give
Yet something of them survives.
The great treasure of existence
Fills a pot full of leaks –
Endless is its gain
Endless is its loss;
Ceaseless wastage
Cures the idleness to save
And this powers the process.
The formless mobile vast
Timelessly exists
But is absent in minutest minutes.
By what name shall I call him
Both existence and non-existence is whose essence
And like a bubble in whose flow I rise and sink?

Translation of poem 2 from the collection Rogshajyay (In Sick Bed) by Rabindranath Tagore. The original poem is at http://www.rabindra-rachanabali.nltr.org/node/12911