Before Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

Before your rights
To visit are sold,
In cantonementised park
Swings and sea-saws are installed,
A canteen is made,
Before a zoo
With dead lion's skin inside,
And a Disney-land made in Gujrat,
A fly over, or a Sheikh comes to know
About it,
Makes a hotel taller than K-2.
Before
All the loitering,
Plastic's covers, chairs and bottles
Are stuffed into it,
Poisoned washed
Skins cleaned and folks swim in it.
Before,
‘Karhahi' is cooked on its bank
Fish is fried,
And you are shown
The fights of bear and dog.
Before a huge structure
For prayers is made, and people wash…
Before the addicts know
About it
Before it is bought in ‘toto'
By Malik Riaz,
Or developed by DHA
Or the Sharifs and Zardaris buy it.
Made into some base,
Before everything
That can befall
Every calamity-
Visit it, see it, adore it
And relate it in stories to your children
And grandchildren.

-On the future of Phandar Lake, Ghizer Valley.

Sadiqullah Khan
Gilgit
November 10,2014.