When Night Falls In This Wretched Land Poem by Mohammad Younus

When night falls, in this wretched land,
The streets of the city shroud in grief,
You can see people —
slumped in silence -staring at the stars,
And you think they are annoyed with God,
But you're totally wrong —
They're brooding about -
Past, present, and future,
Down the spiral staircase of imagination,
They glance into the deep distant past -
The past with its horrifying memories -
Files deeply stored in the archives inside,
Woeful accounts of tyrants and oppressors -
Mughals, Pathans, Sikhs, and Dogras -
But, Hindeez have beaten the record!
When night sleeps and day wakes,
Gory, gruesome horror scenes ebb back,
It is an oven at noon, the greatest pit of fire!
And yet, the young generation are not low-spirited,
They are on fire!
On the streets of the distressedcity,
when army construct barriers of concertina,
Their eyes flame with resentment,
They roar inside with dark sound -seething in silence,
Looking up to God of the future -for intervention,
They are locked-up voices in a locked-up land,
Darker than twilight and prisoner's cell,
But, their faces are furiously red -like the glowing sun,
Look, there they are all rage -with heads holding high,
And you think they are calm and cold,
But you're totally wrong,
Truth is, they're on fire!
No matter how savagely the ruler treats them,
They refuse to be ruled by fear and terror,
They dream Kashmir to be a freeKashmir —
That never has been free-for the last four centuries,
But yet, they dream it to be free -for all times to come -
An abode of peace and harmony for every Kashmiri

Mykoul