Daily Times

Two pace ahead from the mosque, under the tamarind tree

Comes my grave

Every day a horse can be seen commuting here,

Preferring a flowing stream

A river runs and a camel keeps softly walking

Along with the boat, the river flows with pride

With the same disposition depart as well

For what grave it comes, I know not

But I know that no one will come for me, ever

Neither a tree with prayers,

Nor an image of a wind

Or a flash of a lightening

But people say that my grave is overcast,

by this tamarind tree

But with a major gust of a wind,

my grave get piled with the leaves of that tree

Every day, at the pre dawn,

Arrives a man for sweeping the mosque

He lights up the joss sticks

and turns on the lights

But the time has passed,

I knew not how to tell that man

That the name of my gravestone is not my name

My grave is another and I am graved in an another grave.

This poem is a translated version of Qasum Faraz’s poem

Poet: Qasum Faraz

Translated by Shahab Akram

Published in Daily Times, April 9^th 2018.