A Fallen Pigeon Poem by Shahid Saleem Butt

A Fallen Pigeon

As I got close to road bend;
A cozy, grey, angelically-built fine-grain-feathered-haired pigeon abruptly fell,
Like stone from sky right in road-middle.
None of it moves;
Was it dead or alive?

Bird's and mine, souls talked,
It beseeched help;
I stopped at the roadside,
Bewildered what to do, how to save this angelically-dressed bride (at least body) :
A truck, car and a light-passenger-vehicle,
Coming fast towards us.

I took a few seconds to think;
What to do to avoid crisis;
The vehicles came further nearer,
I couldn't see it run over;
I couldn't indicate the vehicles to stop,
Not sure they will stop or understand with so little time left;
Stopped at roadside with praying, crying and beseeching heart,
So vehicles don't run it over.
But
But
When gone were they,
I saw its pure-ablutioned body in fresh blood;
The bird crushed under one's cruel tyres.

The soul departed now or had already, I don't know;
Did it fall dead or it died now, I don't know.
But, but,
The crush of its heart rumpled my soul,
One crushed physically, the other got ruddy soul.

And, and, I couldn't stand;
With smashed heart, I moved, drove bike and reached job.

The beseeching soul's request filled my heart with passion;
As I think on with tensest ever temples,
Passion continues pouring in,
To reach over-brimming phase,
To disallow anymore passion.

How can I forget such an innocence and beauty run over thus?
Hard-truth demands me,
Run away to some abandoned land,
And forget everything.

Agony still tortures, promptest act may have saved the soft-lush-grey truth;
But how? I must have risked life to save its already dead or yet alive body.

Soul deep agonizing torture overpowers my heart, whenever it recurs;
And bleeding memory knows no moment when it blurs.

As easy to forget a hearty delight,
As hard to let go of an over-brimmed agony.
Shahid Saleem Butt