Talk To Me : A Translation of 'Baat Kar' by NM Rashid

Talk to me
            Show to me my face for it has 
 Been burned by the warmth of your eyes
Talk to me
Remove the curtain on my view
On which there is a rainbow of pretense
Stretched out
The rainbow which is not a mirror of aspiring
And neither a step stone of the ink of passion!

You saw that yesterday, I (A beggar)
Under the shadow of the wall of morning
Was found shivering
Your eyes, your lips kept staring
How could I have believed in their warmth for I
was in the depth of the catastrophes of my heart,
Swayed by memories

  Talk to me
For between the night turning in to the dawn
There is no distance

  Talk to me for your discourse
Is a verdict against the face of death*
Now transcend beyond the eyes and ears and lips
On the paths of desolate cities
Dip the chandeliers of voice

The waves of secrets
Will emerge, streak after streak!  


*Improvement needed. Suggestions are welcomed.

 

I have lost something
On the shores of pain and comfort,
In the waves of soothing that crash there
Wasting away, turning in denial
Vanishing somewhere
Never to be found,
Like the sky above the dense clouds
Rarely seen,
Like the forgotten tears
Of the lessons never learned
Hidden in the clouds of unending curves
Always there
Never raining.

I Can See You

I can see you

In the distance, through the distance,

And even though

The stones that stand between you and me

As opaque, placid they can be, stronger than ever,

Strengthened by centuries of decaying

of connection and will and life and joy,

And that earth beneath me is refusing to stay still,

And that my eyes are blind by the shadows of strain

And my hands now refuse to listen to me,

Still,

Because you are so far away from me,

And because you are above the frame and space for me,

And because you are a mirror

That reflects my burning, my yearnings and my learnings,

And because that burning produces a light

That flames the yearnings

Which lights the learning,

And that light can pass though stones, and frozen hands and blind eyes,

To reach you,

Because you know it,

And since you know it, you reflect it,

Thus in that reflection, despite everything,

I can see you.

Ma'en Ni Mien Keh'nun Akhan by Shah Hussain ((Translation)

Ma'en ni keh'nun akhan, dard wachore da haal

O' mother, to whom should I narrate, the pain of estrangement?

Dhuan Dhu'ke mere murshid wala, jaan pholan taa'n laal

the smoke rises out of (the extinguished fire of) my passion for my beloved, (but if) I scrutinize the ashes, the coal is still red.

So'laan mar diwani keti, burhoon piya saade khayal

The strokes of anguish rendered me insane, my every thought is sunk in rift.

Dukhan di rooti, So'laan da saalan, Aa'hun da balan 

(My meal consists of) the bread of sorrow, the curry of angst, cooked on the heat of my sighs.

Jangul bee'le phire dhond'endi, aaje na payo laal

I wander around in the woodlands, probing, but have not found the gem yet.

Ranjhan Ranjhan phira'aan dhondedi, Ranjhan mere naal

(I call out) Ranjhan, Ranjhan(the beloved) searching for him,( but) he is with me (all along)

Kaahe Hussain faqeer numana, shoo mile taa'n thayon nihaal

Says the innocent Dervesh Shah Hussain, I'll be happy when I'll find the beloved.

Here is a link if you want to listen this kafi,

https://soundcloud.com/zaighum-mashriqi/iqbal-bahoo-maye-ni-mein-kino

The Barren River

Like a barren river that waits for flood,

I wait for you.

And even though the river knows,

That the flood would break every bank,

Every trusted, known bank he made,

Since the last flood.

And that the great wave of water,

Would turn everything upside down,

And nothing will be the same,

And that wave will be gone soon,

And all the river will inherit,

Is the sand the flood brought along,

Still the river waits for the clouds to thunder,

For the rains to fall heavily,

For the waves to come quietly and powerfully,

Still,

I wait for you.

“The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
― Robert Frost

Courtesy:- www.goodreads.com