In Memoriam A. H. H. , Section 5

I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given outline and no more.

---Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Tennyson wrote In Memoriam, which consists of 133 sections; A. H. H. stands for Arthur Henry Hallam. Hallam was a close friend of Tennyson's who was also engaged to Tennyson's sister. He died before the wedding at the age of 22.

हर हक़ीक़त मजाज़ हो जाये

हर हक़ीक़त मजाज़ हो जाये
काफ़िरों की नमाज़ हो जाये

मिन्नत-ए-चारासाज़ कौन करे
दर्द जब जाँ नवाज़ हो जाये

इश्क़ दिल में रहे तो रुसवा हो
लब पे आये तो राज़ हो जाये

लुत्फ़ का इन्तज़ार करता हूँ
जोर ता हद्द-ए-नाज़ हो जाये

उम्र बेसूद कट रही है 'फ़ैज़'
काश अफ़्शा-ए-राज़ हो जाये.

---फ़ैज़ अहमद फ़ैज़

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
Friends are enemies sometimes, and enemies friends.

I was a tiny bug. Now a mountain. I was left behind. Now honored at the head. You healed my wounded hunger and anger, and made me a poet who sings about joy.

If your guidance is your ego, don’t rely on luck for help. you sleep during the day and the nights are short. By the time you wake up your life may be over.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absent-minded. Someone sober will worry about events going badly. Let the lover be.

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.

Most people guard against going into the fire, and so end up in it.

My friend, the sufi is the friend of the present moment. To say tomorrow is not our way.

Nightingales are put in cages because their songs give pleasure. Whoever heard of keeping a crow?

No longer a stranger, you listen all day to these crazy love-words. Like a bee you fill hundreds of homes with honey, though yours is a long flight from here.

No mirror ever became iron again; No bread ever became wheat; No ripened grape ever became sour fruit. Mature yourself and be secure from a change for the worse. Become the light.

Only from the heart Can you touch the sky.

Patience is the key to joy.

People of the world don’t look at themselves, and so they blame one another.

Since in order to speak, one must first listen, learn to speak by listening.

That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility.

The intelligent want self-control; children want candy.

The middle path is the way to wisdom.

The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.

Thirst drove me down to the water where I drank the moon’s reflection.

To praise is to praise how one surrenders to the emptiness.

We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.

We rarely hear the inward music, but we’re all dancing to it nevertheless.

You think the shadow is the substance.

---Jalal-Uddin Rumi (1207-1273)

Write down ! I am an Arab

Write down !
I am an Arab
And my identity card number is fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the ninth will come after a summer
Will you be angry?

Write down!
I am an Arab
Employed with fellow workers at a quarry
I have eight children
I get them bread
Garments and books
from the rocks..
I do not supplicate charity at your doors
Nor do I belittle myself at the footsteps of your chamber
So will you be angry?

Write down!
I am an Arab
I have a name without a title
Patient in a country
Where people are enraged
My roots
Were entrenched before the birth of time
And before the opening of the eras
Before the pines, and the olive trees
And before the grass grew

My father.. descends from the family of the plow
Not from a privileged class
And my grandfather..was a farmer
Neither well-bred, nor well-born!
Teaches me the pride of the sun
Before teaching me how to read
And my house is like a watchman’s hut
Made of branches and cane
Are you satisfied with my status?
I have a name without a title!

Write down!
I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors
And the land which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left nothing for us
Except for these rocks..
So will the State take them
As it has been said?!

Therefore!
Write down on the top of the first page:
I do not hate poeple
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper’s flesh will be my food

Beware..
Beware..
Of my hunger
And my anger!
---Mahmoud Darwish

A Word on Statistics

Out of every hundred people,
those who always know better:
fifty-two.

Unsure of every step:
almost all the rest.

Ready to help,
if it doesn't take long:
forty-nine.

Always good,
because they cannot be otherwise:
four -- well, maybe five.

Able to admire without envy:
eighteen.

Led to error
by youth (which passes):
sixty, plus or minus.

Those not to be messed with:
four-and-forty.

Living in constant fear
of someone or something:
seventy-seven.

Capable of happiness:
twenty-some-odd at most.

Harmless alone,
turning savage in crowds:
more than half, for sure.

Cruel
when forced by circumstances:
it's better not to know,
not even approximately.

Wise in hindsight:
not many more
than wise in foresight.

Getting nothing out of life except things:
thirty
(though I would like to be wrong).

Balled up in pain
and without a flashlight in the dark:
eighty-three, sooner or later.

Those who are just:
quite a few, thirty-five.

But if it takes effort to understand:
three.

Worthy of empathy:
ninety-nine.

Mortal:
one hundred out of one hundred --
a figure that has never varied yet.

---A poem by Wislawa Szymborska
(translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak)
_______________________________________

दिल-ए-मन मुसाफ़िर-ए-मन

मेरे दिल मेरे मुसाफ़िर
हुआ फिर से हुक्म् सादिर
के वतन बदर हों हम तुम
दें गली गली सदायेँ
करें रुख़ नगर नगर का
के सुराग़ कोई पायेँ
किसी यार-ए-नामाबर का
हर एक अजनबी से पूछें
जो पता था अपने घर का
सर-ए-कू-ए-नाशनायाँ
हमें दिन से रात करना
कभी इस से बात करना
कभी उस से बात करना
तुम्हें क्या कहूँ के क्या है
शब-ए-ग़म बुरी बला है
हमें ये भी था ग़निमत
जो कोई शुमार होता
हमें क्या बुरा था मरना
अगर एक बार होता

---फ़ैज़ अहमद फ़ैज़

Curse

Furrowed motherland,
I swear that in your ashes
you will be born like a flower of eternal water

I swear that from your mouth of thirst
will come to the air the petals of bread,
the spilt inaugurated flower.

Cursed, cursed, cursed be those
who with an ax and serpent came to your earthly arena,
cursed those who waited for this day to open the door of the dwelling
to the moor and the bandit:
What have you achieved?

Bring,
bring the lamp,
see the soaked earth,
see the blackened little bone eaten by the flames,
the garment of murdered Spain.

--- Pablo Neruda from Spain In Our Hearts (1973) translated by Donald D. Walsh