A tragedian’s valedictory orations
A noble Othello,
The magnificent, articulate, self-conscious;
Greek, Roman and Church.
The vernacular is Christ’s cross.
The philosophers
And the saints’ perseverance.
Against nature and fate
Men’s avarice defeat a cause.
A mournful death.
Hope,
That foul deceitful thing
Has no part in it.
In the East
The serenity of Lord Buddha
A mystic’s elixir,
A pagan rite
Gods of multitude
Or the all-powerful prevailed.
In today’s long silence
Utterances, understatements, broken speech;
To the point of saying nothing.
The long silence is a long shadow
Bottomless, fearless
Like “The graveyard poetry”
Still and numb.
For a past and a future, for the present.
Sadiqullah Khan
Islamabad
July 17,2013.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem