far away, somewhere
a spark of light
a star, or a fire out in the desert
says to me with its tiny rays
“if a mountain is high, a passage runs through it”
what if life is a lost moment of awareness?
an eternal beloved it has for company
Translated from Pashto by Sher Zaman Taizi and Pervez Sheikh
AHMAD NADEEM QASMI
A Prayer for the Homeland
God grant that on my pure land should alight
a harvest of flowers that fears no decline
the flower that blossoms here may bloom for centuries
and autumn has never to pass this way
the green that sprouts here may remain forever green
and such a green that it is without compare
heavy clouds may bring down such rains
that even stones become verdant and fruitful
God grant that my country’s honored head may never bend
and its beauty have no dread of passing time
that each person arrive at the summit of art and culture
that no one be unhappy, no one live in distress
God grant that for not one of my compatriots
should life be an ordeal, affliction, or crime
God grant that on my pure land should alight
a harvest of flowers that fears no decline
Translated from Urdu by Omer Khwaja
Stone
Don’t make statues with sand, my good artist!
Wait a moment, I will bring you stones.
I will pile them up before you, but
which color of stone would you like to use?
Red—that is called heart by a heartless world?
Or that blue of a petrified eye
streaked with centuries of amazement?
Will you need the soul’s stone,
on which truth itself falls like a stone?
Then there is that stone called white civilization—
in its marble, black blood can be glimpsed.
There is also the stone of justice, but
it is secured only if the adze of gold is in hand.
All the standards of this age are stone,
all the opinions of this world are stone,
poetry, dance, painting, song—all are stone,
my imagination, your quick intellect, stone as well—
in this age the sign of every art is stone,
your hands are stone, my tongue is stone.
Don’t make statues with sand, my good artist.
Translated from Urdu by Omer Khwaja
WAZIR AGHA
Terminus
There was nothing there
just a tiny square
steel cabin
that served as office, residence, and ticket booth,
all together.
Outside the cabin, straight ahead, in the line of vision,
was a red signal post,
and beneath that red signal
black rail tracks
striking into the breast of a hill
had apparently just come to a halt—
for thousands of years,
just there, at the foot of Chhanni Khachi,
lying inert.
There’s a rumor,
just a rumor, that when
evening fell
a strong breeze blew
and classes were declared over for the day,
the schoolmaster’s turban
came off the peg
and, turning into a black cobra,
sat curled upon the treasure,
and that treasure of wisdom, of knowledge and skill
stood up with the support of a stick
and cleared his throat like a silver vessel.
Then we—pale children,
coins of some future age,
tumbling, clattering—rolled out
into the lanes, into the four corners of our village.
Our pleasant houses
like a till
drew us to themselves.
But we were not the coins of the till.
In the vicissitudes of time, we had yet
to declare our own worth.
In our mysterious, cool gleaming, we
were yet to pass through the touch of many fingertips—
we were in circulation, moving!
So that when night fell
and a sharp wind blew
we entreated our Baba:
Show us, too, the Chhanni Khachi station some time!
They say that a hill there presides
over the tracks like an ascetic jogan over a smoking fire—
she stands by the entrance, mysterious, queer,
with her hair undone like a witch.
Take us with you, show us the witch—
show us Chhanni Khachi!
Us—promise us,
Baba, promise us!
And Baba, clasping us to his breast, would say:
What will you do there?
What is there to see?
There is just a red steel cabin
and beyond that cabin
where the railway tracks stop
a black wooden signboard
that reads
“Nothing beyond this point.”
My dear children!
I don’t know how long
I’ve been standing in front of this signboard.
Look at me carefully before you decide,
but decide for yourselves.
But we puffed up our faces and said:
No! We know nothing of this!
Show us Chhanni Khachi!
Us—promise us,
Baba! Promise us!
And then one day
holding on to our Baba’s finger
we boarded the train from our village
and a wave of happiness
swept through the depths of our bodies.
Hearts beat fast,
became a part of the swift engine’s choo choo choo choo—
we felt as if the engine
were our body,
the train, a shadow
that pursued us,
lurching, straightening, dragging itself along.
Then it happened
that the train’s windows beckoned us
and showed us a scene strange and marvelous.
We saw that the whole earth
was covered with stalks of rice.
Flights of birds,
surveying the earth with hungry eyes, shook their wings.
Above the birds
were scattered the rags
of some soft, silky cloudlets.
A little beyond that
the sky’s azure body
was visible to everyone
through rents in the torn cloak of clouds.
Instantly, in the thick garment of “we”
a slit emerged,
grew wider and became a window,
and then “I,”
stepping through the window, asked:
Do you have any idea
what else is there beyond the sky?
And I turned back
and gazed at birds, cloudlets, and earth,
at the engine spewing smoke
and the train tied to the hem of the engine’s shirt,
at my Baba in the compartment,
at others who sat beside Baba,
gazed long at everyone.
And in that lucid moment
I,
transformed into a glittering dewdrop
trembling on the earth’s eyelash,
began to perceive my separate existence—
began to perceive my separate existence—
then I became afraid.
Catching the smell of Chhanni Khachi, the black engine,
overcome with delight, had let out a shriek
and yet another shriek,
and his b
lack locks
flying backwards
caressed the body and limbs of the dragging train.
Smoke had filled the belly of the train.
But then, suddenly, my Baba,
waking out of a stupor, said to me:
There, the journey’s over!
Come along now—
the train is about to stop, get your things together.
Step down, look at it,
and quench your thirst!
But I was already up.
The moment the train stopped with a hiccup
I leaned outwards
and put my foot
into some blind, barren atmosphere.
Just thus, for a second I remained suspended in air
and then stepped to the ground,
landing at the last frontier of palpitating time.
On Chhanni Khachi’s stretched
frozen eyebrow
like a petal of snow I came to rest.
I saw
there was emptiness all around me,
no clue to where my Baba had fallen behind,
no engine, no railcars,
smoke, fire, speed…nothing whatsoever.
Only the railway tracks remained
that lay like an expired moment on the ground.
But I was no expired moment.
Below the crest of my dry hair,
above my parched lips,
screened by quivering curtains
two windows were opening up.
From these windows, in vacant space, in the mist,
Chhanni Khachi’s square steel cabin, the signal
and the hill below the signal that had
abruptly cut off the black railway tracks—all of it,
in rising spectral shapes I
was beginning to recognize.
But then, all at once, sight
returned to my eyes in a blaze
such that beyond the hill
through the rent in the thick mist
I saw a handsome, frothy river,
that like a rough, untamed horse
sped on in angry leaps,
on which no saddle
or black, heavy, steel bridge
slung its weight.
I don’t know how long,
lost in that scene of bounding and leaping
tied to the string of my sight,
I would have remained besieged,
when over the river,
wet from some slick rock, a bird took off,
flew to the far side of the river.
And then
my amazed, sharp, shining
eyes saw
that there, on that riverbank too,
was a red signal
a square steel cabin
and railway tracks, on that side too,
lying like an expired moment on the ground,
spreading out their naked arms
toward the river,
inert, unfeeling.
Then, in that instant of awareness
another flashing light, descending from somewhere,
took me in its lap and said:
When there is no bridge
between “here” and “there,”
between rusted past and spanking clean
time yet to be,
the suspended moment of “now,”
this signal, the wall of this hill,
the steel room,
will forever endure at a single point.
In time’s unending string
Chhanni Khachi is a knot.
If the knot unravels
nothing will remain.
But today I think
I, too, was a tiny little knot,
and in my self Chhanni Khachi was hiding.
If that day I had crossed the bridge of that moment,
I would not have been able to stop.
If the swift river, with its spray of foam,
had given me the way,
I would have advanced
through vacancies of space
and begged only for charity
from every echo and sound I heard.
I—between the shores of beginning and eternity,
nameless, directionless,
clinging to
the broken stirrups of a rough, untamed horse—
would have been wandering forever,
wandering forever.
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
SHEIKH AYAZ
Dialogue
Wadera: I have milked my buffaloes,
steam rises from the cooking pot.
Is there lightning outside?
Is it raining outside?
Hari: My intestines coil with hunger, the fire
in my kitchen is out.
Is there lightning outside?
Is it raining outside?
Wadera: I have my father’s heifers and bullocks of good breed
that impregnate my cows.
Is there lightning outside?
Is it raining outside?
Hari: I have neither cows nor father’s heifers
and no worry about cows getting pregnant.
Is there lightning outside?
Is it raining outside?
Wadera: My autaq has a solid roof,
and if there’s lightning outside, let there be lightning,
and if it rains outside, let it rain.
Hari: My hut has a blue roof and it clatters loudly.
Lightning? Let lightning be all the more.
Rain? Let the rain pour!
Translated from Sindhi by Asif Farrukhi and Shah Mohammed Pirzada
Farewell to the Earth
Now I ask leave—
farewell!
I put the bow
to rest—
farewell!
I will sing
like a flickering flame
ready to go out.
Farewell!
Those caravans
that have already departed,
I am going further than they.
Farewell!
But where am I going?
I do not know.
In the distance
the evening beckons me.
I will go and
immerse myself in it—
farewell!
With so many pains,
so many sorrows,
still, life was worth loving,
and lovely
was the moonlight
on midnight trees.
Today, I step
into the sky,
toward the moon—
farewell!
Like rain clouds I go,
having poured myself on the thar.
But this instrument,
slung over my shoulder—
how long can I keep on playing it?
Farewell!
Farewell, my Sindh!
Farewell, my Hind!
All the world
was contained in you.
Farewell, my life,
farewell!
Translated from Sindhi by Asif Farrukhi and Shah Mohammed Pirzada
Horse Rider
O horse rider!
Where do you go?
No tavern or inn for you to rest.
A winter evening—the cold air
pierces and stabs like a dagger.
O horse rider!
Where do you go?
You never pull up the reins
at any watering hole,
though you see lamps lit bright along the way,
and the stars arrayed against the sky.
Where do you go?
Your feet forever suspended, not touching the earth,
your head not reclining in anyone’s lap—
pause your headlong journey while you can.
Where do you go?
O horse rider!
O horse rider!
Translated from Sindhi by A
sif Farrukhi and Shah Mohammed Pirzada
Write
“Have you ever fought a war? Have you seen
bodies falling in dust?”
“Yes.”
“Then write about it.”
“Have the lips of a bride ever played
like a flute on your lips?”
“Yes.”
“Then write about it.”
“Have you ever closed your eyes after getting drunk
and felt the river swing and sway,
and have you ever glided across it like a swan?”
“Yes.”
“Then write about it.”
“Has your goal ever moved within reach,
then just as suddenly drifted away,
silencing your heart like a drum?”
“Yes.”
“Then write about it. Don’t write only
of things you have heard. Don’t write
only from reading what others have written.”
Translated from Sindhi by Asif Farrukhi and Shah Mohammed Pirzada
AHMAD RAHI
Gently Blows the Breeze
Trees sway, eyes cannot sleep,
gently blows the breeze.
My longing for a swindler has deceived me,
gently blows the breeze.
They tire not in waiting,
eyes never weary,
no longer can they bear his absence.
Desire for him, and fear of the world!
Gently blows the breeze.
My longing for a swindler has deceived me,
gently blows the breeze.
Laughing, I can hide from others,
dissembling, lying,
but where can I flee from my heart?
The light of love burns clear and bright,
gently blows the breeze.
My longing for a swindler has deceived me,
gently blows the breeze.