Ghazal

by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi

*handwritten Urdu text by the author, early 1980's*


She must have sewn everything up together,
She must have washed faces in dream-tears.

The underground stream, its unknown depth--
Diving
she must have lost herself long ago.

Night has come,
bearing a new disaster?
Only that same old thorn
pierces you and me.

Sound of water, flowing, all-conquering,
Force of my voice lost in it too.

No matter what,
wave on wave, wetting
the heart of the shore of strangeness
to the lips.

In the black word-forest,
neither road nor direction.
Waiting and weeping
she must have fallen asleep.




[bas ek rishtah hai jis me;N parad ga))ii hogii]
translated by Frances W. Pritchett