Life could have been a joy

If lived within the shade of your face.

Darkness, the fate of my being,

Would hide itself from your glance.

No wonder. A stranger to grief,

.

I could have remained lost in your charms,

Absorbed myself in the tales

Of your lithe body, your sleepy eyes.

If I had to face the world’s bitterness, 

.

I could have sipped sweetness from your lips. 

Life, a bareheaded frenzy, a cry, could search for me;

But I would steal moments of peace within the shade of your face.

But all this did not happen.

.

I don’t own you; I’m not sad because of you; I don’t look for you.

Life passes as if

Coveting friendship no more.

I embrace all life’s miseries;

I now pass through strange streets.

.

Dark shadows leap towards me.

From the desert of life and death;

There is no way, no end, not even a ray of light.

My life wanders in a void, a void in which someday 

I, too, shall be lost; I know all this, but

Once in a while these thoughts come to mind.

.

  With M. H. K Qureshi

.

From: Talk̲h̲iyān̲ (Bitternesses). Dihlī: Panjābī Pustak Bhanḍār, 1963. pp. 104 – 106

Kabhī kabhī is quoted in full in Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970