A milky scarf shimmering like a velvet dream

Flows on night’s youthful breast;

Flowers, leaves and trees

Sway like slender girls.

The horizon’s soft lines dissolve in distant air;

Earth is beauty, a land of dreams.

Shadow-images come from the past,

First as fancy, then as fact.

The trees that sheltered us 

Still stand like guards.

.

Again, today, under their shadow two throbbing hearts

Come to listen and speak with silent lips.

With endless anguish and toil

They steal these moments of awakening and dreams.

The weather, the time, the season are as then,

When our love began.

With trembling hearts and bashful looks

We offered the Almighty a prayer

That he might hear from both the hearts and eyes.

.

Shadow-images spring from the past.

You came, eluding the world’s glance, 

Eyes downcast, cowering within yourself, 

Shy, afraid of your own footfall, 

Frightened of your own shadow. 

.

Shadow-images spring from the past.

A small boat floats in the breeze;

The boats man sings to the current’s sway;

At every wave you

Swing into my open arms.

.

Shadow-images spring from the past.

I put a rose in your hair;

Your eyes shyly turn away in joy.

God only knows what I want to say today;

My voice falters; my tongue is dry.

.

Shadow-images spring from the past.

Your arms caress my neck;

The shade of my lips falls upon yours;

I know we shall never part,

Yet you fear that though together, we each belong to someone else.

.

~~~

.

Modestly you pick up

Books scattered on my bed;

Softly you hum

Songs for the wedding night.

.

Shadow-images spring from the past.

These moments, sweet, dear;

These strings of flowers, beautiful, tender;

Every street in my village, an island of dreams;

Every breath, every breeze, music, and more music.

.

🙥

.

But suddenly, hoof beats swelled from the hills;

Western breezes spread gunpowder’s loathsome stench;

Clouds of destruction hung on production’s face;

Terror danced in every town; every city turned to waste;

Khaki battalions marched from civilized western lands,

Arrogant, swaggering tyrants, drunk with pride.

Spikes of army tents pierced quiet Earth’s bosom;

Heavy boots clawed at soft village streets;

The flood of marching songs drowned the hum of spinning wheels;

The fiery dust of Jeeps shredded the meadow’s floral carpet.

Dignity fell, yet prices soared;

Meeting halls emptied, but recruiting centers swelled; 

The happy village youth turned into a grim fighter 

Marching down the road, never to return.

With him departed honour, youth  

He, the son, the brother.

Sadness crept about the town; fairs and festivals folded away;

Tree-swings moved no more;

Dust blew about the bazaar; hunger grew in the fields. 

The plenty of the open shops took off to Black Market; 

Poor homes grew poorer; 

Scarcity grew into famine; villages starved. 

The shepherd forgot his path; the village girl, the well. 

Virgins left home, never to return.

The peasant sold his cow, the plough and field, 

Life’s means sold in hope of life. 

With nothing left to sell, bodies were sold.

Men flaunted the shame of darkened rooms.

.

Shadow-images spring from the past.

You came down the street, hair dishevelled,

Carrying the cross of your shame,

Trying to hide your naked body

From leering eyes.

.

~~~

.

Shadow-images spring from the past.

I knocked on the city’s every door; 

Nowhere could I get work; 

I couldn’t get the price of my hapless intellect 

In the politicians’ gambling den. 

.

Shadow-images come to mind.

Wailing surged from your house;

A messenger from the front with a cable:

Your brother, dearer to you than life,

Dead in action.

.

Shadow-images spring from the past.

Indignity followed at every step;

Shame cavalcaded at every turn— 

No courtesy, friendship, or love; 

No one belonged to anyone; everyone, alone. 

.

Shadow-images spring from the past.

That road, desolate like my heart,

No one knew where it led.

Someone without a conscience bought you;

On the horizon, the flushed sun spat out the blood of our hopes. 

.

Shadow-images spring from the past.

That evening I learned that in this world, like the fields, 

They sell the smiles of frightened girls. 

In this world, a market place, 

They also sold the love of two in love.

.

That evening I learned that when fathers lose their fields, 

Mothers must sell the tokens of their golden dreams; 

That when brothers die in war, 

Sisters are sold into Mammon’s brothel. 

I still recall the sun’s blood-tinged evening, 

The end of your loving dreams.

.

You, miles away, somewhere, lonely 

or in rollicking company,

Perhaps weaving dreams of me from a stranger’s kiss

. 

And I, heart-struck with work day and night, 

die only to live.

I debase my art to fill my enemies’ pockets; 

.

You and I, helpless, helpless as this world;

the body’s needs weigh heaviest on the soul. 

In these times, the price of life is disgrace, or a noose.

.

~~~

.

I could not hang, nor could you fight;

you wanted to come to me, but couldn’t. 

We were two who would never reach fulfilment.

.

Though we lived only in name, our breaths seeped fire 

and burned in silent faithfulness. 

Our dreams, lined in silk, burned into sordid reality.

.

And today, when again two shadows move beneath these trees,

two hearts meet again. 

Then again, death’s clouds and war’s holocaust arise.

.

I think those shadows may not be doomed as we;

their madness may not be in vain. 

They have no blood-drenched evenings like ours.

.

I still recall that evening wet with young men’s blood. 

I still recall the fate of love’s dreams.

.

Our love could not survive life’s accidents—  

But let those shadows have their wish; 

There’s nothing for us but pitiless death; 

They, at least, may have a happy life.

.

For too long, the leisure of politics

Dictates that children, when grown, will be killed;

For too long, crazed rulers

Have sown famine in distant lands.

.

Too often, youth’s dreams are empty; 

Love, made to seek a shadow; 

Too often, beloved life must seek a pit for safety 

In the highways riddled with tyranny.

.

Come forward! Tell all trampled souls 

To make every wound a tongue. 

Our secret is not only ours, but everyone’s. 

Come! Proclaim the secret to the world.

.

Tell the political bosses

We hate their warmongering;

We hate life’s apparel

That holds no dye but blood.

.

Tell them that if any killers set foot here, 

The very ground will dissolve beneath their feet; 

Every breeze will lash out against them, 

Every tree will turn to impregnable rock,

.

~~~

.

Rise up! Tell the warmongers 

We need machines for work, 

Ploughs to till our land; 

We don’t need to snatch another’s.

.

Tell them no peddlers shall come this way;

No virgin will be sold;

The fields awake; harvests ripen;

Never again will we sell an inch of this garden.

.

This is the land of Gautama and Nanak; 

Never again will barbarians tread this sacred soil. 

Our blood is a heritage for a new era; 

Never again will the militant feed on our blood.

.

Speak! For if we are silent, even now, 

This land is forever doomed. 

The horror of unleashed atomic madness 

Will sear earth and sky.

.

In the war just past, only houses burned; next time, 

Even the lover’s solitude will turn to ash; 

Before, bodies burned; next time, 

These shadows too will burn.

Shadow-images spring from the past.

.

    With M. H. K Qureshi

.

From: Ā’o kih ko‘ī khvāb bunen (Come So We Might Create Some Dreams). Dihlī: Panjābī Pustak Bhanḍār. 1973.  pp. 79 – 103