tausi-e-shahr

bis baras se khade the jo is gati nahr ke dwar
jhumte kheton ki sarhad par banke pahre-dar
ghane suhane chhanw chhidakte bor lade chhatnar
bis hazar mein bik gae sare hare bhare ashjar


urban expansion
jin ki sans ka har jhonka tha ek ajib tilism
qatil teshe chir gae un sawanton ke jism
they who have stood at the gate of this singing stream for twenty years


elegant sentinels at the borders of rolling fields
agreeably dark
shade-sprinkling
fruit laden


tall
for twenty thousand were sold away all the verdurous trees
they whose every gusty breath was strange magic
murderous axes came and split the bodies of those heroes


down with a thud fell the blue wall of wounded trees
huge bodies being sawn
falling skeletons
leaf and fruit being cut away


heaps of dead bodies in the pale shroud of trembling sunlight
today standing beside the gate of this singing stream i think
in this shambles my thought is the only flowering branch
now


o children of adam
a mortal blow for me too.
giri dhadam se ghayal pedon ki nili diwar
katte haikal jhadte pinjar chhatte barg-o-bar


sahi dhup ke zard kafan mein lashon ke ambar
aaj khada main sochta hun is gati nahr ke dwar
is maqtal mein sirf ek meri soch lahakti dal
mujh par bhi ab kari zarb ek ai aadam ki aal