اپالو اور اتھینا ۔۔۔۔۔ حالتِ التوا میں لکھی گئی نظم

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1. Apol­lo And Athena … A Poem Scrib­bled in the State of Abeyance!

   Man­zoomeh!
   I have seen you many times
   pass­ing through the mau­soleums
   lodges of dervish­es
   and the annals of his­to­ry,
   walk­ing into the forests,
   plains and the inter­fluves
   Seem­ing­ly you are younger than I am
   but, the feet of your love
   are cov­ered with the dust of bygone cen­turies
   and your bust is full of
   milky-cos­mic lights
   God knows,
   what galax­ies have you come from
   what coun­tries and realms you pass through
   and what cap­i­tals of the world you trav­el to
   but when your soul
   wear­ing a ter­ra­cot­ta cloak
   step into my waters
   then, even the sun-stroked
   dehy­drat­ed clouds
   scat­tered here and there
   like cig­a­rette puffs sus­pend­ed in the air
   learn how to get drenched
   It is known only to the cracked soil
   on a dried riv­er bed
   how big a para­dox it is, when
   the thirst can­not be quenched by the entire riv­er
   We, who can only play with
   the paper-boats in a pail of water, envis­age
   it is the entire ocean itself
   and in this short-lived odyssey of ours
   become none oth­er than Apol­lo and Athena…

   Ours is no riv­er, no ocean
   no masts, no sails belong to us
   We are a delta full of love
   and instead of swim­ming
   we like to get drowned, rather trapped
   in our own bogs, until
   some­one pulls us out of it
   and under the show­er
   pours all the rain in the world
   over our mud-soaked bod­ies
   Love, it is
   to wash away it all
   till it becomes a slush and then
   to get into a sleep­ing bag
   to sleep in peace

   Man­zoomeh!
   It is not a child’s play
   to get into one dream from anoth­er
   like, from one void to anoth­er
   from one fire to anoth­er
   from one riv­er to anoth­er
   from one body to anoth­er
   from one age to anoth­er
   Won­der, how many ages pass,
   just in this ambi­gu­i­ty
   we hes­i­tate, just to take a small leap
   what if we wake up
   right in the mid­dle of a dream
   Just like a blos­som­ing flower
   is the har­bin­ger of Spring­time
   awak­en­ing, is the real love
   With eyes firm­ly shut,
   one can only die, not be in love
   Love, is the abeyance of the end
   Love, is the gen­e­sis of one’s being!

   Poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
   Eng­lish trans­la­tion by Kam­ran Awan