'अब क़लम से इज़ारबंद ही डाल'

क़ौम की बेहतरी का छोड़ ख़याल,
फिक्र-ए-तामीर-ए-मुल्क दिल से निकाल,
तेरा परचम है तेरा दस्त-ए-सवाल,
बेज़मीरी का और क्या हो मआल
अब क़लम से इज़ारबंद ही डाल

तंग कर दे ग़रीब पे ये ज़मीन,
ख़म ही रख आस्तान-ए-ज़र पे जबीं,
ऐब का दौर है हुनर का नहीं,
आज हुस्न-ए-कमाल को है जवाल
अब क़लम से इज़ारबंद ही डाल

क्यों यहाँ सुब्ह-ए-नौ की बात चले,
क्यों सितम की सियाह रात ढले,
सब बराबर हैं आसमान के तले,
सबको रज़ाअत पसंद कह के टाल
अब क़लम से इज़ारबंद ही डाल

नाम से पेशतर लगाके अमीर,
हर मुसलमान को बना के फ़क़ीर,
क़स्र-ओ-दीवान हो क़याम पज़ीर,
और ख़ुत्बों में दे उमर की मिसाल
अब क़लम से इज़ारबंद ही डाल

आदमीयत की हमनवाई में,
तेरा हमसर नहीं ख़ुदाई में,
बादशाहों की रहनुमाई में,
रोज़ इस्लाम का जुलूस निकाल
अब कलम से इज़ारबंद ही डाल

लाख होंठों पे दम हमारा हो,
और दिल सुबह का सितारा हो,
सामने मौत का नज़ारा हो,
लिख यही ठीक है मरीज़ का हाल
अब कलम से इज़ारबंद ही डाल|

---हबीब जालिब

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

---Dylan Thomas

I DON'T KNOW WHAT PRAYER IS

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

---Mary Oliver (From "The summer day"; New and Selected Poems 1992)

To ostatnia niedziela ( This is the Last Sunday )

The weary sun
Gently parted with the sea,
At this hour you declared,
There is no love.

I was saddened slightly -
Without anguish, without sorrow
At this hour resounded
Your words.

As we part, I will not be angry,
The fault lies with me and you.

The weary sun
Gently parted with the sea,
At this hour you declared,
There is no love.

--- Zenon Friedwald

Migrating Birds

That summer with its total lie;
O pang we learned at autumn's hands.
Under the cloudscape, slow and high,
A blackwing bird before my eye
Wheeling for southern lands.

The wildgeese magicked into flight,
The clamoring cries of cranes that soar
Over the land in gilded light.
And then the shadow pulled down tight
In winter blackout till they trek once more.

Sensitive heart, senses laid bare!
You have no nest in east or west,
Landsick and restless here as there.
Just learn to love life everywhere
Or what is left of life and rest.

--- Hubert van Herreweghen
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

---Mary Oliver

Alice after Wonderland

The bedroom reeks of really old sweat.
Alice has risen up from wonderland,
Waking with an adventure-woozy head.
Her slippers do not fit. Her hand

Combs a few hairs down flat. She steps
Out of her gown. Everything shivers.
The mirror is mist, her breath is bitter.
The night escapes her porous flesh.

Little girl Alice is back in time.
Gazing back through her wizened up eyes
She sees on the farther side of her dream,
A woman ugly with reality.

---Bernard Dewulf
Translated by A.Z. Foreman