Daily Times

Here on the lawn

It’s me sank in the chair

Just behold me.

Your saffron-yellow eyes

Two enormous pearls

Like a frail and feeble light

Glow in the dark

And whisk me away down to the lush green shade of a neem tree

In a far off land

A fairy-faced maiden

Dressed in silver stitched clothes

Coming from afar

With the fragrance of her lilting giggles

And pleasing manners

Enkindles a strange lamp in my heart

And leaves me in entranced ecstasies

Here on the lawn

It’s me

Sank in the chair

Keep beholding me

I’ve spent a whole twenty years in this cage

And the very chair has now transformed me into a snow covered mountain

My thoughts and imaginations

Queries and questions

My voice, all my expectations

Everything has frozen

But as you come and gaze at me

And enkindle the yellow pearls of your eyes

Like a pale and frail light

I melt down

And like the stream of moonlight

All the way down to the lush green shade of that neem tree

And keep on calling

O, my fairy-faced beloved!

I’m here

Gotten up from the chair

This is an English translated version of a Balochi poem written by Asif Shafique

Published in Daily Times, February 1^st 2018.