On Harvesting Poem by Muhammad Shanazar

Life is fleeting,
Its days and nights when pass
Leave behind a stock of memories,
I recall time when I was a child
And I harvested wheat along with
My parents, uncles, brothers and sister
We used to sit in a long line and divide
The crop in rectangular long pieces,
And our sickles moved vigorously.
Sometimes my fingers were injured
Or bruised, my mother tore
A piece of her anchal
Wrapped around my fingers
And lovingly asked me to be heedful.
Then a time came we harvested,
When my brother and I were married,
Two more reapers were added to the family,
It was the loveliest time we had had,
My father was averse to harvesting,
He often avoided the work
And moved on edges of the farms,
When my mother exhausted
She stood akimbo surveying the crop,
And I often looked at the route
Where from my aunt brought lunch,
At noon we had meal
With oven-baked loaves smeared
With butter; lassi, sauce and hacked onions
Were other items of the lunch.
Then we snoozed in the shade
Of mulberry or sissoo tree, the short sleep
We enjoyed ourselves on the grass,
Even the kings might not have tasted
On the cozy beds made of ivory or gold.

Then a long pause of time ensued,
I did nothing worth-mentioning
Today after thirty years
I again performed the pastoral practice,
On the same farms but with sons
And daughters, nieces and nephews,
The changed young reapers,
No one was there from the older ones,
My parents, uncles
And the eldest brother are no more
In the world, but in imagination,
I felt them all sitting in line, my mother
Standing akimbo surveying the crop,
My father avoiding the work
Lingering on the edges with slow steps,
Uncle doing the double job:
Reaping and managing the cattle,
My mother leapt tearing a rag
From her anchal to bind my finger
When the sickle gave me again a fresh cut.
My melancholic deepening mood
Taught me well, we all are peasants,
We sow and reap turn by turn,
And when harvest is done we leave
To snooze in the cool shade,
Either of mulberry or sisso of Death.