not meaning to be impudent, my Lord.
If my life be spared,
I would with folded hands point out,
O noble master,
that in your perfumed chamber lies a corpse,
decomposing—who knows, how long it has lain there—
that needs your compassion.
Sir, show it a little kindness.
Don’t give this black chador to me—
cover the shroudless corpse in your chamber with this black sheet,
for the stench that rises from it
pants down every street,
strikes its head against thresholds and doors,
tries to cover its nakedness.
Listen, its heartrending screams
conjure strange illusions.
They, who are naked even in their chadors—
who are they? You must know.
My Lord, surely you recognize them?
These are concubines!
Hostages, who remain lawful for the night,
and at dawn are sent away.
These are bondswomen!
Raised in status by the planting of your Honor’s holy seed.
These are the household ladies
who, to offer the tribute of their wifehood,
stand row after row awaiting their turn.
These are mere girls,
on whose head, when my Lord places his affectionate hand,
their virginal blood flows to bring color to his gray beard.
In my Lord’s perfumed chamber, life has wept its course in blood—
where this body lies
the slow murderous centuries have flaunted this bloodcurdling spectacle.
Put an end to the show!
Cover it up, my Lord!
The black chador has come to be not my need but your own,
for on this earth my existence is not simply a sign of lust.
My intellect sparkles on the grand avenues of life,
the sweat on the earth’s face gleams with my labor.
These walled homesteads, this chador, the rotting carcass—they can have these blessings.
In open air, with sails spread wide, my ship will ride the seas.
I am the traveling companion of the new Adam
who has won my trusting fellowship.
Translated from Urdu by Yasmeen Hameed
Search Warrant
Police Chief:
“Look, Bibi, I have a search warrant,
troopers too, waiting around the corner of this street.
I could do this on my own, I thought—
one item is all we need.
Why resist and risk dishonor? So hand it over on your own
or simply say where in the house you’ve hidden it.”
Never had I seen my home this way before.
I hear heartbeats throb in its doors and walls,
from arteries of stone and steel seeps blood,
warm breaths, eyes wide open, parted lips on all sides,
whispering softly in my ear, repeating one more time
my seven-generations’ pledge to my country’s dust.
Four walls, O my homeland, in your lap,
A brief period of security, this is my debt to you.
How many underground prison cells rise before the eyes!
How many possibilities disclose their doors to me today!
At my feet opens the tunnel of my hopes
on whose walls glimmer the rainbow colors of life.
Now new themes will be inscribed on the city’s surrounding walls,
O passing moment! I swear by your trampled honor.
Dust in the lane where my house stands is red,
beyond this window a red tulip blooms.
Such alarm on account of a book from the past?
Part this curtain and behold my dreams for the future.
Translated from Urdu by Yasmeen Hameed
NASREEN ANJUM BHATTI
Ascending Mystic Song
On the first step, Lord and Master, I stood amazed.
On the second step, Lord and Master, I caught sight of you.
On the third step, Lord and Master, God came close.
On the fourth step, Lord and Master, I found my love.
On the fifth step, Lord and Master, I rolled back the ages.
On the sixth step, Lord and Master, my heart was fearful.
On the seventh step, Lord and Master, I saw a dream.
On the eighth step, Lord and Master, I broke in two.
On the ninth step, Lord and Master, I was left all alone.
On the tenth step, Lord and Master, I cried out for you.
This pavilion of my love was raised in your name.
Without you, the noise and chatter is altogether worthless.
Translated from Punjabi by Muhammad Shahid and Waqas Khwaja
I
I lit a lamp and placed it in a shrine
keeping watch.
I am like water in a pitcher—
if you retain me, I remain.
He went by, himself, thoughtless,
whose thoughts engulfed me.
Translated from Punjabi by Muhammad Shahid and Waqas Khwaja
It Could be Any Age
Quietly, within, they tear at the roots of my being—
your eyes, Ranjhan.
Eyes, O my world!
The trident of a fleeting glance—
the body kindles, transforms.
Delights of love, different in daytime and at night.
We are guests of the rising moon,
Sacrificing sleep to its lamplight, our wakefulness imprisoned.
Summon our night!
The wedding party is ready to depart.
Farewell! Farewell! everyone calls out, the drum is struck.
At what hour would someone wink and say,
The night is over?
A moment’s pause, a breath or two—
but no!
When does the night that has passed ever return?
What is written in fate cannot be altered: it will surely be.
The feet that slip put forth no roots, spring stretches and turns,
the body kindles, transforms.
Declining, old and seasoned now, caught in the beloved’s bonds,
life completes itself this day.
I will become water and live in your eyes.
It could be any age.
Translated from Punjabi by Muhammad Shahid and Waqas Khwaja
Kafi
An ancient land, shaken with violence, pulled apart thread by thread,
a roll of ginned cotton, a bunch of cotton locks, a boll in a damp husk,
then bud, then seed—
in the end dust returns to dust to erase all difference.
Turning around, we return to our beginning.
However One commands!
I lit the shrine’s lamp to earn love,
the lamp lit, night sped, but day did not dawn.
She who grinds is left to wait—
Who would toil so hard, O lighted lamp, if one is still to remain unfulfilled?
I, too, am but clay, I crack and shatter, there’s nothing within, ah!
Needlessly I laid a wager—
there is no oil, no smoke, no kindling,
neither lamp wick nor wad of cotton dipped in oil.
Centuries are sewn around their origin,
the past drifts only farther.
With heavy heart, a crane takes to the air,
to join the flock it was parted from in flight—
they wheel and turn again and again,
searching in vain.
What luck, Ranjhan, you chanced my way!
I abandoned all caution, all sense of shame.
Why I bound my heart to Ranjhan, I have never understood.
Fiercely the firewood burns; crowds converge to warm themselves.
I long for Ranjhan, and a multitude gathers to stare at me.
Translated from Punjabi by Muhammad Shahid and Waqas Khwaja
The Sparrows’ Question
Whom should we ask, dear blue-skinned love?
Is it morning, or has sleep fled in the middle of night?
Drums thunder and throb,
the sparrows are startled,
nestlings chirp for food.
Drums beat, and the sparrows fall stunned.
Beaters clop and clump through,
a struggle among trees—
leaves shake, the dust of blossoms falls, rulers are replaced.
We are but sparrows, blue love.
Seasons play their games.
We have seen people come and go,
seen the great and powerful—
but what does it matter to us?
We are but sparrows, blue love.
Once we take flight, we travel far,
tired and weary, settle upon a ledge.
Someone is awakened, another stares, one looks on in pity.
Someone listens for a moment
or angrily shouts a curse,
claps sharply once and never looks our way again.
It is the Lord’s wish.
A lifetime of hardships has taught the sparrows how to suffer,
into deepest darkness the sparrows have descended.
Translated from Punjabi by Muhammad Shahid and Waqas Khwaja
YASMEEN HAMEED
Another Day Has Passed
The breath’s smoke clings to all the windows,
again a city disappears.
In the playhouse of day and night, only I remain
and this fortress of stone and brick.
There are footfalls of bleeding apprehensions.
Creeping lizardlike
a crowd of loquacious women rustles
toward me.
The branch flowering on the heart’s window wilts with the heat of pain,
someone’s disapproving glance stops at the frontiers of trust.
And today, too, it transpired that
the special condition of love’s contract
was consigned to the account of a paper relationship.
Every page of the heart’s book is witness
that the book has remained unread.
When the scratch of the black reed-pen cried out
the careworn circle of hearing contracted—
someone’s name separated from another’s
and expectation drew a line across the country of hearts.
When winds spoke
all the inhabitants of the house switched off the lights and went to sleep.
Another day has passed.
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
I Am Still Awake
I am still awake
like my eyes
and speak
in my own voice
my own dialect.
I have only now become acquainted with the meaning of migration.
When, sometimes, snow knocks a hole in the wall of night
I fill the hole with my body
and speak of the coming day.
All things placed in my room are awake—
they all address me
saying
death has some connection to flowers.
The smell of flowers in the vase
is the smell of flowers scattered on a fresh grave.
Springing from earth,
displayed in stores, do flowers know
they have some connection to death?
Flowers, too, are not enough—
for life or death
they don’t fill up all the wounds
and start to wilt so soon.
But I remain awake, like my tears
and remember those things
I used to like
before the flowers spoiled.
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
I Have Spat Out This Poem
I have spat out this poem
There, lick it up
with your long tongue
I endured
and changed your name
I swallowed fire
and did not consider you the sea
I took pride in my earth-brown complexion
and pride in the color of your blood
and laughed at the color of your blood
I drank up my teardrop
and dried up like the desert
I spent the night
and did not wait for morning
shattered the lamps
and burnt my hands
flung their ashes
to the seventh sky
from which no one wishes to return
Picking pearls from seashells
I tossed them into the sea
and filled my fists with glass
Have you ever seen the color of actual blood?
No, this is not a wound
I have covered the wound
and filled the cut with my own flesh
given away my eyes
and pieces of my body
made another human
If I were God
I would have blown my breath into it!
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
In Our Station
Some people are born sad
and kept sad
so that they may make the world beautiful
We fell in love with grief
and the human being ceased to matter
Sunflower seeds slipped
out of our fists and broke into bloom
and doves’ eggs were preserved
We drew a picture of a water tank
and changed the color of water
When pieces of paper fell from our hands
pens, small and large, broke into speech between our fingers
sarangi strings melted on our fingertips
and we taught peacocks how to dance
When we were advised to distill perfume from filth
we decided to move away and disappeared in the crowd
With the last gleam of night
we found the poem’s title
were appointed to awaken others
In our station
there was no date for relinquishing our charge
That is why we should not be asked any questions
about the beauty or ugliness of the world
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
PK 754
The city glitters
and in some dim light you, too, are sleeping.
From these heights
the moon’s surface is closer.
But, no—
no one knows
whether the air is swift or cold here,
whether this is a floating smoke of clouds
or the dust of companionship.
Is this the quivering wave of the final call
or the unsteady vessel of flight
or the lurching earth below?
Who was it went to sleep holding sand in his fists
became distant even to imagination and dream
disappeared in the tangled hair of straying night?
Are the stars moving with me?
What regret is it that has not yet been soothed?
Heights, separations
even intimations of death have not eased it.
Fellow traveler of depths
of altitudes
tell me—
on earth
in the air
the path that never took shape
what came of it?
Tell me
what kind of sleep is it
that can cross the wall of night
and transform into morning?—
What kind of dream?
Tell me, what is this cry of pain in the air?
What is this restlessness?
The journey is coming to an end
and the noise i
s deafening.
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
Who Will Write the Epitaph?
You are looking, just now, for the first star
but its light has not yet reached the eyes.
When, beyond the destination of defeat and dispersal,
hundreds of light-years have been subdued,
then you, at the utmost margin of the sky,
will be listening to stories about the earth-born.
From space within space
planetary systems will call to their sparsely inhabited worlds.
Earth, too, will start at the familiar knocking.
But, then, who will speak?
The rose garden, color, fragrance
twittering trees and roaring forests—
all alone, what will they do?
Day, night, wandering from town to town,
Day, night, wandering from town to town.
Whom will they pat to sleep, whom will they awake?
Warming themselves at a fire in some dismal village
to whom will the idle lines of hands
complain of their existence?
Who will commiserate
with the life of stones returning to ice?
When all the dreams of crowded galaxies in space within space,
dreams laughing at tales of love and parting,
after concluding their last rotation,
remain unexplained,
who will weep at this failure?
Who will write the epitaph of the earth-born?
Translated from Urdu by Waqas Khwaja
SEHAR IMDAD
Acid
To the nameless martyrs of Sindh
Needles stabbed in eyes,
some pleasant dream
turns to stone.
The jugular severed in the slit throat,
some melodious song
remains trapped in the heart.
Acid poured
over hennaed hands,
slowly skin crinkles and dies.
The sun’s hot rays
prick like daggers.
Night, like poison,
runs through veins.
Translated from Sindhi by Azmat Ansari and Waqas Khwaja
Mohenjo Daro