Having found the particles of dust on earth’s low ground aflame,

The whites and the blacks have come together on the heights.

That collar-opening which

Had been a memorial of mutual war has been stitched by the favor of time.

.

War has ended; the age of peace has come.

The madmen of the desert have become firmly entrenched in litters and have sat down;

Hidden from the sight of crowds of thirsty-lipped people,

The cup of lust’s wine goes on overflowing.

.

This festivity is not a feat of joy, but a circus;

The pomp of highway robbery has been brought out in new clothes;

This beautiful lamp springing from darkness

Has come to glow after extinguishing thousands of candles of brotherhood.

.

If this sapling light which darkness has watered

Blossoms, it will bring forth flowers of fire-sparks;

If it cannot blossom, it will leave behind a poison

In the earth before the arrival of the next season of flowers.

.

    Bombay, 15 August   ∙ (Independence Celebration)

.

From: Talk̲h̲iyān̲ (Bitternesses). Dihlī: Panjābī Pustak Bhanḍār, 1963. pp. 157 – 58

Mafāhimat is quoted in full in Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970