A Shadow Poem by Muhammad Shanazar

Often I stood
At a corner of the street,
And waited for you,
Sometimes weaved
The texture of dream for tomorrow,
Sometimes dreaded by
Heartless realizations.
To stand and wait for you
Had become a habit,
Then a window used to open,
You called, beckoned me,
Waving your anchal
And I ran to you,
You used to convey something
With a pounding heart,
And I retreated listening you,
Then encasing in the heart a hope
For return of the same moment,
I used to get lost in the dale of slumber,
Which became the necessity of love.

Then the hands of Time,
Changed the spectacle,
Neither there was a window,
Nor the anchal,
It was only me and your companionship,
And worries of the children,
There were some dreams
Dangled between you and me,
The same dreams which led us
Through the pangs of illusions,
From each morn to each eve,
Then we had least time to love each other.

Months and years went by
In no span of time,
The same window opens even now,
There an anchal waves too,
But you do not stand there…nor I here,
The boy who standing on the stairs
Makes us worried,
Who makes you distressed,
Who troubles me too,
Is our own son,
In fact our own shadow.

Written by Ahmed Zahoor
Translated by Muhammad Shanazar