Beyond Land and Time

The Melody of Air Enters

(Bātāshєr Shôbdô Єshє)

Translated by Golam Mustafa

When the melody of flowing air touches Haritaki branches

It settles for sometime to stop at last, as it dies.

When you get to know more of the meadow

Step by step, a few miles around

The meadow remains full of sunshine and quiet

As long as the afternoon lies spread on it;

I call the Shalik bird by name; still

It looks for the shadow or the fiery bright mate;

Ignoring human worth

In the manners of birds, in solitude.

So many villages and towns of Nineteen Forty

Have gone; the people were no more there

In the afternoons of Nineteen Forty Two.

The vast expanse of Nineteen hundred, the sky

I sometime like to feel;

No peace around; the last disbelief in the purple lord

If still is there I ponder and gaze: birds, sunshine, pasture.