پسپائی اور محبت کی آخری نظم

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1. A Poem of Retreat by Naseer Ahmed Nasir

   When the boats
   and the shores become tired of the water
   the paths while passing through the hamlets of the settlements
   suddenly get crushed under the range of a highway;
   then you should assume
   that your and my days, on this earth, have come to a close
   and I have lost the last battle too!

   With the aids that you sent in the form of prayers
   and in the company of my own guardian words
   in the ditch like a downhill path
   waiting desperately for a futile effort to heal my wounds, and
   trying to suck in oxygen from the radiating rays;
   right in the middle of the battleground
   the poems I wrote for you
   and the diaries in which dreams of peace were written
   have turned into coal-ash with the trees
   that were fully laden with flowers,
   before the ray attack,and
   under whose shade I sat the last time
   swallowing the pieces of hard dried roti.

   If you notice
   that the time has stopped all of a sudden
   even before the evening prayer calls could become louder,
   the day has prolonged; and
   while peeping through the window
   if you find that everything around has changed
   then don’t remember me becoming suddenly uneasy
   otherwise they
   will reach me easily through the path of your heart
   and will embalm me
   as a mark of their victory.

   And when instead of me
   you see an alien animal-like creature
   has reached your farmhouse gate,
   then don’t be dazed
   and open the gate furtively
   and all those warm kisses
   that you have kept safe for me
   while touching them with the flashing lips of an alien wolf
   don’t shed tears –
   or else, the earth will be covered with a miasmic smoke forever, and
   when the last gust of wind
   while passing through the portico
   decode my message to you by murmuring about
   then please, don’t turn around to that wind
   otherwise, that alien wolf will become alert
   of the weakest part of your soul
   and will gnash his machine like teeth in that same feeblest part
   and listen!
   before you submit to him completely
   don’t wait for any other sign –
   in the history of mankind
   the death of love is the last ritual!

   Translation by Bina Biswas