The Grand Quilt

I don’t believe we can stitch together
only scraps of beauty, squares of light.
I don’t believe in a quilt that doesn’t also
have patches of sorrow, blocks of ache.
Such pieces are, of course, much harder
to want to stitch in. But it matters
that we do not exclude them.
It matters right now that we don’t pretend
they do not exist.
It matters that we sew every piece
into the grand cloth.
It matters, too,
how we sew these pieces in,
perhaps using our finest silk thread,
perhaps with an elaborate stitch
our grandmother taught us,
or perhaps we must use
a stitch we make up
because no one ever taught us
how to do this most difficult task—
to meet what at first seems unwanted, wrong,
and to incorporate it into the whole
and to do this for as long as we can stitch,
that’s how long.

- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

KAMISHLI¹

Writing to you from here, my friend,
what else can I tell you about
other than pain, sadness?
I would have to paint for you
a picture of us here in this city,
have to show you the face
of who is a stranger, driven out
from his very own land,
I would have to draw a country
of frontiers – spikes and guns
between mouth and mouth
between hand and hand –
borders.

Slowly the hours meander
in the darkness of streets, lanes, markets
dragging sorrow, sadness;
hours hung on the trees and the walls,
people wounded by the stabs
of bad luck.
Here, time is a machine
and the police control it.

--- FERHAD SHAKELY

¹Kamishli is a city of Kurdistan in Syria. Because of its closeness to Iraqi Kurdistan, the politically persecuted Iraqi Kurds found refuge there.

उम्र जल्वों में बसर हो

 उम्र जल्वों में बसर हो ये ज़रूरी तो नहीं 

हर शब-ए-ग़म की सहर हो ये ज़रूरी तो नहीं 

चश्म-ए-साक़ी से पियो या लब-ए-साग़र से पियो 

बे-ख़ुदी आठों पहर हो ये ज़रूरी तो नहीं 

नींद तो दर्द के बिस्तर पे भी आ सकती है 

उन की आग़ोश में सर हो ये ज़रूरी तो नहीं 

शैख़ करता तो है मस्जिद में ख़ुदा को सज्दे 

उस के सज्दों में असर हो ये ज़रूरी तो नहीं 

सब की नज़रों में हो साक़ी ये ज़रूरी है मगर 

सब पे साक़ी की नज़र हो ये ज़रूरी तो नहीं 

मय-कशी के लिए ख़ामोश भरी महफ़िल में 

सिर्फ़ ख़य्याम का घर हो ये ज़रूरी तो नहीं 

- ख़ामोश ग़ाज़ीपुरी

"अंजानी राहों में" — मेरी जान हिन्दुस्तान एलबम से।

अंजानी राहों में तू क्या ढूँढता फिरे

दूर जिसे समझा वो तो पास है तेरे

साँस में हवा, जान में ज़मीन

दिल में खुला आसमान

प्यार है खुदा, प्यार है ख़ुशी

प्यार से है दोनों जहाँ

तेरा यह आशियाना, मेरा भी आशियाना

घूमता रहा दूर तू कहीं, उड़ते बादलों की तरह

कहीं से तुझे आई है सदा, लौट के आ अब ज़रा

तेरा यह आशियाना, मेरा भी आशियाना

वो झिलमिलाती आँखें, वो भोली सी अदा

वो धीरे-धीरे चल के लहराती हवाएँ

हमको ले जाएँ वहाँ, जहाँ हो घर अपना

मेरी यादों में पाया है

आज तो मिलने का दिन है आया, आया...

- पी. के. मिश्रा 

You decide

But whenever I think of myself 

you appear by my side in the form of a silence 

We swallow the light.

A rose garden, think of it, in the middle of the desert. 

You touch that place with your wound, 

The desert softens somewhat.

At that moment, right at that moment 

Like taking a copper tray, hanging it on the wall 

you think of me with fresh new eyes, love me.

 You create me anew.

Should we name this thing? You decide. 

But whenever an alarm clock goes off 

here and there in places that I cannot hear,

you become a ringing thing, 

Like a nun thinking of renewing her vows,

 you say 'Welcome' to the greatness of living.

You give form to water. 

Is this what they call surface tension? 

With a strange love you open your mouth,

might regret that some things don't work out. 

With these eyes that come from

when you first began to love me -

their depth, the burden of meaning -

With these things I say, 'Love me.

- İlhan Sami Çomak
Translated by Caroline Stockford