سٹی ہائٹس

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1. City Heights

   The earth had seen a dream
   to bear me in her womb, and
   nur­ture me;
   with­stand sever­i­ty of sea­sons, and
   changes of weath­er,
   make promis­es with the breeze, and
   to make pas­sion­ate clouds her friend –
   All for me!

   The earth is a moth­er
   like every­body else’s moth­er –
   Even before the cre­ation
   She knit­ted cloaks of ver­dant dreams
   for me;
   With the fiber from her green womb
   she knit­ted colour­ful vel­vet, silken socks,
   caps and clothes –
   with her deep hymns she’d prayed
   for bless­ings.

   The earth had seen a dream,
   She thought I’d grow up
   and bear flow­ers and fruits, and
   with my per­fume sea­sons would breathe
   The names of the savoured tastes
   would belong to my fruits; and
   there’d be sun­shine in the small branch­es
   birds leav­ing their nests would sing, and
   tick­le their feath­ers.
   The beau­ti­ful lov­ing pairs
   Would sit under my shade, and
   would vow nev­er to part –
   with their red ablaze lips, would rise
   from the soil and inscribe
   each other’s name on my brown skin, and
   from my seeds new jun­gles would grow
   and stretch.

   The earth is moth­er, she had a dream
   but in the eyes of her sons, there is
   Anoth­er dream to real­ize –
   to touch the sky,
   to build plazas instead of parks, and
   the earth remains help­less as
   she watch­es painful­ly
   while they hack me down!

   Poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir
   Eng­lish trans­la­tion by Bina Biswas
   Copy­rights © Naseer Ahmed Nasir. All rights reserved.