Rain Over Graves Poem by Iftekhar Bukhari

Rain over the graves
The rain falls
The rain falls over the dusty graves
It is inundated, far and wide
like a perpetual dream
soaked to the skin
I cannot recall,
where I had seen my first rain
In the window or
in my dream
On the rooftop or
along the bank of a river
In the desolate eyes of
the children in Africa
or on the mournful shores in Bengal
full of naked corpses
How many rains lie buried
under this rain, I wonder!
In the cold water accumulated in an alley
an innocent childhood used to walk
A wet face, being wiped off
by the fragrant border of a veil
God knows, where I have thrown away?
that heart and those shoes
those floating wooden-tablets,
and the drenched schoolbags
that thirsty call of a Cuckoo far away
in the omnipresent loneliness
A song that we sang
while her lips were locked with mine
A flickering evening of the parting
amidst the first drops of August rain
So many colors, it had poured
on this barren life of mine
but it has no color of its own anymore
The rain falls over the dusty graves
as purposeless as life,
as meaningless as death!
(Translated by Kamran Awan from Urdu)