POETRY (RETRIBUTION)

Image by Chatgpt AI

Translated by:

NASSER YOUSAF

(from Hisaab Kitaab by Ghani KHAN)

RETRIBUTION

Crying, prostrating, praying my life was spent

Death alone was the outcome in the fold of dark depths

Lord! Do Fate, Destiny have any law, way out of this labyrinth?

The fires of youth consume me but I am questioned as to why

My hands and feet in chains as I am tempted to dance dance

Every soul has thus been beckoned to this waltz tied in chains

O the Wielder of smiling eyes let there be no holds barred

Behold then how this dust spins, Adam sprints and jumps

Now dancing beside Eve, now the strings of the rabab

Lord, keep your Will aside and watch me how I dance

Up above in heaven observe then my maddening laughter

In rapture I am like wind, fire, thunder and spanking light

Turning into a joyful music, a luminous light I begin to shine

Ever present dark shadow of death, its black eyes bulging wide

Turns a glance at me and devours me wholesome in a while

Light, ecstasy get shattered turning me into desert's dust

O the Lord of my heart's light, of pleadings, of my thought

Of the red colours of youth and its joys, O Lord of all

If I was to be just dust only to vie with dust

Why was I blessed with music flora and a beauty so robust

What justice taking a mere palm of dust to the ends of heaven

Only to bring it down stripping it of all its various beauties

Laila is rid of beauty just as young turned into old and old into dust

What more good is in store as the mullah chatters on the pulpit at length

Shorn of joys beauty skill, not sparing a strand of black hair

Thus blighted here What is left to be weighed in the hereafter

My rose like youth is reduced to no better than a palm of dust

The grind goes on till all my veins will start wailing in distress

This short sensitive life is quietly slipping towards end

When nothing will be left of me but a wee bit of scum

Retribution? What retribution, please do open the accounts

I am the one defeated and devasted but being the weakest is at fault