Ages Gone Ago Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

We hailed the stones with dried mud
The river is past, floods gone.
We had torrents on heads endured,
And walked a hundred miles on foot.
We counted a hundred thousand graves
Without grieving much. We languished,
In the upper case songs, and indulged,
In the fragrance of roots, cooked flour.

Haunting nights, we cried mothers,
And ran down the hillock’s downstream.
Knowing that they had been in love
While deciding the fates for thrill’s sake,
Or her lips slightly parted resembled
A past haunt. But we ultimately gather
Dried barks of trees and leaves,
Left over by floods of times, ages gone ago.

Sadiqullah Khan
Gilgit
August 12,2015.