Editor: Murtaza Shibli

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Poems

By Mehfooza Jan


LOVE

Like you, I fell in love with a youth
in full bloom, like you, a beauteous rose.
Having cast one glance at me
he slowed down and started staring at me,
"Where are you to?" he said,
"Stop awhile at the roadside, till all
the tongas leave, and the rabble thins."

Feeling the warmth in the soul, I stopped,
"Now let us move together," he ardently said.
"Why do you loiter solitarily
that too with such a yoke of beauty!
People are merciless. Be wary, I say
lest someone gets enamoured, and takes you away.
Leave you stripped of your green shirt and leave.
Where are you going, like a gale of spring.
For God's sake be afraid of the people.
Your beauty's luster may enlighten their path.
Who bothers, if they win your heart or not.
Your hopes and aspirations are no concern to them,"

"I, too, am in search of a love, like you", he added.
" So long have I waited in search of love.
You accept, I offer you my soul and heart.
Mold fast to me, I need your support,
in the solitary journey of life 1 need your hand.
Let me have a room in your fond thought."
For so long I enjoyed his love unabated.
"Accept me as your love in public." I said.
"God has blessed us with a child, I feel."

Leaving me stripped, he left, saying.
"Aren't you crazy, or frightened?
For you seek meaning in worn out promises.
Do not annoy me any longer, I say.
Leave me here and take to your path.


THE STORY OF MY CITY

The story of my city is as extended
and as arduous as that of life itself.
For long have been waiting for you.
I wish you come and see
the scars that my heart bears.
the scars that, in broad daylight,
drowned my being in gloom.
The scars that keep my body and soul
ablaze from dawn to dusk.
The scars that tear asunder
my very consciousness.

I wish you come
I would show you how many cemeteries,
how many cremation grounds
laid.
I wish you see
multitudes of innocent youthful bodies
withered in the deadly winds.
I wish you see
the myriad eyes that lose
their sight in shedding tears.
I wish you see
countless fathers and sons
dying while living.

The story of my city is known to you.
Shiva and Shakti used to saunter
in this very garden.
Haz Sulaiman, too, chose this very city.
and Shah Hamadan rebuilt the city of his vision.

Did you not heed
the cry of the city
that you left unmindfully.
You know it well
how in prime spring
the autumnal winds made life shrivel
and bubbling springs were parched dry
and the soil of the garden is thirsting.

I wish you come and I would narrate
to you the unheard tale.
Yet the hope abides
that your advent
Augurs good
and a new sun dawns in the gloom.


ROMANCE

Many a time I ruminate:
if you too, abandoning your romance,
could think as I do, for just one night,
what happens to those hearts
that are thrown out as offal.

Think of the hearts that burn
in the passion for having
their darlings sleeping beside them
with their heads rested on their outstretched arms,
enjoying the bliss as do you.

Think of those poverty-stricken girls, who,
having buried their desires in the bosom,
pine away in the dungeons of helplessness,
watching their youth fading away.
Think of the helpless beauties
that never feel the warmth of the hot arms,
and finally get dissipated in chill boulders.


Translated from Kashmiri by the author.