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A Prayer by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi *handwritten Urdu text by the author, early 1980's* (first poem in ganj-e so;xtah ) Before Death the Jester hidden behind his veil of flowers and flower-beds clad in his ancient gown all patched of a hundred colours Daubs my doors and walls, my house and garden, with soot and trembling panting bodies change to a no-shape shape or become un-real shadows like actors in a play Before the Ocean, moving its magic lips
Spell-binds the moon-lit night and shatters it to fragments Before a tiny particle death-ly
and dazzling brighter more than a thousand suns and moons bursts out from the upper storey of the sky and falls on Earth's head, before it rips Open the heart of the rosy-cheeked half awake half asleep little doll, Before any of this happens, give me leave to die. [munaajaat] translated from the Urdu by the author, 2008 |
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