Twenty Springs Later Poem by Emdad Shah Emdad

by Emdad Shah

Twenty springs later, right twenty springs and one
On a deep, soaked, rainy night in Phalgun's run
To waken this old, threadbare, lifeless heart of mine
You came, my Shati, like a love divine.

Or twenty more, let twenty winters go
At least once more, I pray you, come below
Once more to hold you and to weep our fill.

Then your barred gaze, that pierced my soul until
It shattered me with love's relentless pain
I shall sleep on, through an eternal reign
Past earth's most heavy chains where shadows creep
Come, moon of my high heaven, while I sleep
Come on some day, let all lost hopes renew Come as the hope that out of despair grew.

The green grass of the world, the azure skies
Yet built an otherworldly paradise
Within two hearts
And twenty years beyond, If we should meet again by that same bond
Beneath that very sky, our eyes shall keep
A gaze as long as centuries are deep.

Twenty springs later, blossom of my sight Come to the steps of that stone-ghat tonight Come, wear that yellow dress, if you so choose
With lotus-stem wounds on your bruised, slow shoes.

Twenty years hence, come as a flower in bloom
And I, your lover's nightingale, will boom
My final song
Come like a wandering stream
Unto your home, where all new lands will teem
Across wide fields, till memory's trace and girth

Of all civilizations and this earth
Are wiped away
Just once, before the end
On some unending, rainy midnight, bend
To me