Kanti Ma Ma Poem by Muhammad Shanazar

When I beheld you for the first time,
You face looked a piece of poesy;
Today after years I see the same poem,
But meaning of the poem,
Metaphors and similes all seem altered;
Rhyme, rhythm, metre and diction are similar
Even then the poem is not the same

Only rhymes and rhythms do not make
A poem just like as a river is not a river
Sans current,
An ocean is not an ocean sans depth,
We can’t regard any spot a garden sans flowers.

The waterfalls of your eyes in which long ago
I beheld fragilities, and heard the jingles of Malhar
Smiles bore along colours of thousands of roses.

Your eyes, your smiles seem,
Have gone astray amid the puzzles of ruins
Like a parentless child, perhaps this is the reason
I cannot find traces of the older poem,
Which I read at one noon of June long long ago,
While I sat in front of you in search of my future,
My thoughts,
My feelings,
My passions, my impressions absorbed
By and by, into your face,
And I went on weaving a tale of the poem.


Today I am in front you,
And trace prints of the same poem again,
Instead I see slices of the old newspapers,
Heaped up in your eyes,
I see surging throng of incidents,
In search of those moments, you have lost
Since long into dust of the route of long journey,
I try to read and re-read the poem on you face,
But return time and again,
To the steak of sunlight that passes through
Your white hair that bears old title of this poem,
Only title but nothing else.