One most beautiful poem that I ever translated...Shukriya Naseer Ahmed Nasir ji A Desert Crooning The wind everyday opens the doorway of the town’s old haveli A spirit gets its freedom from the putridness of time, and wraps me around itself I am a stranger exiled from my own locality My body travelling through the rain-starved paths, semi-dry fields, and blossoming like self-grown herbs runs into a swift flowing rain trough The stories of fertility turn into many bends, and in the flooded river many succulent parley, treason, woods, inlands, centuries-old avalanches lesions, deep channels are there; then there is the strange wish to drown itself in one’s own current The wind knows them all. The wind knows! I cart with me a carnival of memories ecstasy of bygone ages, the glow of youthful years, and then there is mourning of decrepit times Happiness is there and there is grief promise-filled day’s hard labour is there Inky darkness of dreamless nights is there, boundless wealth of the nature is there The gold of the sun is there and there is the silver of the stars and the limitless azure sky gapes open astonished, then there’s the singed moon like round bread, and somewhere in the diffused light of lanterns fires mound, and there are shadows of caravaneers The wind knows it all! The wind knows! There is a twine of a pledge entangling my heart, and in my eyes there is love’s broken promise there is dust of my reveries the dampness of unseasonal showers What dearth do I have! The wind knows it all! It plays on the old songs, and decodes my sombre sorrows the wind like a violin talks with me in the slogans of antique melancholy The wind everyday opens the doorway of the town’s old haveli. Translated by Bina Biswas from Urdu
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 08:28:34 +0000
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