Poems: The Memory of Departure

 

 

 

 

Originally Written in Balochi by: Chandan Sach

Translated into English by: Uzair Mehr

 

 

1.    The Memory of Departure

 

I have sowed and watered verdant seasons in the vases

That you might come a day and will bring delectable smiles

A land of white flowers was named after you

Named after you was a day, a world

Denominated was a bazar of booming times for you

You didn’t come it is the world

I didn’t depart because it is not the custom of life

How long the memories will last in the frames?

The pictures too will grow old if come in sight daily

The dreams don’t have a long duration

Who has remained in that day, in that world, in that bazar?

Doesn’t exist anyone for greetings?

How have been the verdant seasons of those vases?

How have been your delectable smiles?

The moments of booming times

Who is alive there now?

Who is staying?

Who is remaining?

 

 

 

2.    Adieu

 

The strewn thoughts dispersed like cotton seeds

The melancholic dreams migrated and faded away

I didn’t know this move of life

Didn’t know that death befalls like this

The earth accommodates itself in my solitude

I worry like a season for my nightingales

Like a garden misses for its fragile flowers

I have turned yellow

Like a tree of fall seasons

Neither have I cool shade

Nor a meadowy desire of life

Ditch me for I am a stranger now

Demolish me that I didn’t tell a tale for you

Uproot me that my gloomy words don’t sprout again

Don’t think of me and bid me adieu

Life is over

You move a bit ahead

 

 

 

 

3.    Farewell

 

Life- the life tried to take me far away but couldn’t come with me.

Dreams- the dreams claimed we want to search but the season of yellowish leaves elapsed

Immortality- the sea of immortality was deep I cast my eyes; the sea grew old

Fear- the fear forsook me; it is true but you have jilted me beforehand myself

Death- the death might bring me close to you again someday but in vain

Ending- nothing has an ending except a person shouldn’t make himself a tale

I saw a dream yesterday that I was got down from the stage- the very dream came true today

But I don’t make myself a tale because the season of yellowish leaves come back- yeah come back for sure

I am sure enough

 

 

 

4.    The Laughter Has No Traces

 

You have come in memory last night again

With laughter embellished the elegance of the beauty

The milky body muzzled like a moonlight

The door kept looking the path

The flowery breezes of heavens came out

For your sight and welcome

The entire months and years of age sticked around

The poetries have seen the angels

When you came in memory last night

I sat and watched the world of door’s eyes

The swaying season of your arrival has induced

The flowers thought of a land

The life turned white

The melodies of your laughter watered the breezes of heavens

I too extended the line of my thirst

 

 

 

 

5.    The Walls Run Along with The Mirrors

 

The walls run holding the mirrors

We are stock-still

Still is the night

There is a sun they say one day it will rise

There used to be a basil in the porch

Yet it is there

But can’t be seen at this time

Without seeing, the meaning of life is a vacant street, black night

But we are motionless

Inactive is the night

The walls are moving past neighing

May the ages of walls grow more four spans and inches

And they will be rooted on the earth

 

 

 

 

 

6.    Green Was Our Sky

Green was our sky

Our earth was a garden of white flowers

The sea of ours was rekindled by the music

We recognize everything of us

No one should put us in the scale like wheat

 

 

 

7.    You Are Recollected in Every time

 

I am in the hell of pale dreams

Neither colors change

Nor the wars alter

Nor comes a turtle dove with plaintive calls beyond the seasons

Nor a camel driver to kiss the lips of these moonlit nights with songs

Nor comes a butterfly for a fugacious play

How will this void swallow me?

I have planted viridian neem trees in these skies of separation

I am an Adam

I don’t have an argument with Eve

The heaven is a dream of times, I don’t hold an affair with it

That I never look in the sky

With whom I should convey the message?

You make yourself a kind angel for a while

And I will do myself a Caucasian Mountain

I am thinking --- what to think

You are recollected in every time

Every time I will be a man

 

 

 

8.    We Are That Room

 

We are that room everyone is allowed to come in

Smoke cannabis and cigarettes, drink wines

Give off all the smokes and curses in between

Close down the windows and door

There is a lamp in the frame in front of the old wall

But unable to sparkle and shine

Another is a wall clock but the spiders webbed in it

The time is entangled

There is no one to come and sweep the inner papers

The broken glasses

Burnt rolls of tobaccos

There is no one to come and take out the lamp from the frame and wipe it,

Light it up

No one to dust the windows and stich a curtain

To take out the spiders from the wall clock

And time comes out

Inhales and rests for a while

We are that room

The broken emblem of desolate age

There is no one here to signify a meaning of these broken emblems

To apply a mark of life in the old foreheads

 

 

 

 

9.     You Close the Door Now

 

Gone are those associations and gatherings

The assemblages of long nights

The traveling with sky

Desolate are the old windows

There is nobody to tell a tale for us

An extra time is added to the duration of dark night

 The time wore away vistas

The sun and the southern star don’t seem to be fascinating anymore now

Let alone the moon

Someone reaches to this street and retraces

The sea doesn’t appear to be a sea now

The traveler is lost like us in the jungle of life

Who will set out in this jungle for a mirror?

The mirror will turn blind in the back instinctively

The journey of seventy-seven age is not a play

I left for a destination

I will hardly be back for myself

The wishes die

The moon will be hit by the mow again

You might hanker

Our helpless and wretch homeland

Our complaining homeland

When you have approached,

Then think of the boats

See the moon through the window

It might deliver a diary in your hand

In a green sea of mirror,

I am standing naked

At which age one should strangle his love?

Your memories have grown old now

In a green sea of mirror,

I am sitting like a stranger apart from myself

You close the door now—go away

 

 

 

10.           The Green Horse

 

The green horse is still neighing at its stable

The neighing has a reason

Of thirst,

hunger

if the thirst and hunger go hand in hand,

then the life like a dry sky will remain at the windowsills

Who will stand by the windows and see the paths of his dreams’ meaninglessness?

The green horse is still neighing at its stable

The body of existence bathes in the blood of inexistence and breathes

Is there anyone to be engaged in the war?

The war is a lamp of restlessness that shines overhead the eternal spirit of nights

The war is a briny water that dribbles down from the eyes of motherless desire

The war is a last part of a drama

That every character raises the sword of his art higher than his head

Who will be back with the sounds of these graves again?

The green horse is still neighing at its stable

The green horse is awake but it sees the asleep pictures dying

The green horse knows pondering

The green horse is tied to the trunk of an unsound neem tree