I Ask You Poem By Billy Collins In Hindi/Urdu Translation Poem by Ravi Kopra

Main is scene k ilaava
kis aur scene ko chaahooN ga,
k ek sadhaaran raat ko baitha hua hoon main
rasooee k table pe aur deevaar par lagay kagaz par
lagay huay hain phool, aur safed cabinets main
glaas k pyaalay aur glaas paDay huay hain,
telephone shaant hai
aur mere haath main ek pen hai pichli taraf muDa hua.

- to be continued


I Ask You
Poem by Billy Collins

What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?

It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside-
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.

But beyond this table
there is nothing that I need,
not even a job that would allow me to row to work,
or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4
with cracked green leather seats.

No, it's all here,
the clear ovals of a glass of water,
a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin,
not to mention the odd snarling fish
in a frame on the wall,
and the way these three candles-
each a different height-
are singing in perfect harmony.

So forgive me
if I lower my head now and listen
to the short bass candle as he takes a solo
while my heart
thrums under my shirt-
frog at the edge of a pond-
and my thoughts fly off to a province
made of one enormous sky
and about a million empty branches.