Vancouver, Delhi And Manuscript Of My Poem Poem by Muhammad Shanazar

Several years ago,
A poem I wrote in English
While I stayed in Vancouver.
Today I found the manuscript
Of the same poem that I wrote
On a greasy white paper which now
Has turned pale and the writing
In blue has become indistinct,
But petals of cherry flower
That I pasted on the pages even today
Remind me of those beautiful days,
And the spell casting nights, like
The poems of Pasternak which impart
Profound agony that spreads
Through the pores of brain.


It seems as if my house has changed
All of sudden, into blue latent Ocean
Stretched in miles, in assemblage of waves
Sometimes drowsy, sometimes dancing alive,
The lanky pines and oaks caress their feet,
So lanky that into their tassels hangs
The half-moon which has just arisen
From behind that hillock.

It seems to me as if the same moon
Today has turned up again,
On the worn-out edges of my house,
Seeking address of the same evening
That I spent with him bathing in lights
At Canada Place,
Amid the drowsy waves of the ocean.


I read the manuscript time and again
But each time,
My eyes stay on the dry petals of cherry flowers,
They still bear the spell of those snail-like
Creeping nights that I spent at Vancouver.

The thought of that half-moon
Will not let me sleep tonight,
It will place the same old manuscript
Of my poem at threshold of my each dream,
The same poem that bears
Everlasting fragrance of the cherry flowers,
And takes me along time and again
To the bank of Fraser where grew
The trees of Cherry,
From those ones shed a delicate flower
From the blossoms and the petals scattered
On the manuscript of my poem,
In one evening.

The river was flowing
On in the speed of Raag Malkonas,
Ornamenting waves with gems of light
Thrown on the banks,
And I was seeking in those waves
The future of my own city,
On the banks of Jumna when early in the morn,
In the prime light the wind passes
Through windows carrying the pong
Of Jambul and mangoes
And spreads over and around the whole city
To the farthest end, even the moon
Lowering on my balcony whiffs the pong.
My existence is replenished with freshness
Of the smell at exhausted melancholic night.

O Moon! Do not go back yet,
To the thick tassels
Of the pines and oaks of Vancouver,
Because I have to include the future of my own city,
In the manuscript of that poem.