Being inside for the past two weeks on account of the COVID-19 outbreak picking up steam in my part of the world, I learned some things I never could straying outside. Among these is the beauty of the world seen from a window. Writing this poem, which is my first one in years, I was reminded of Mirza Ghalib's famous ghazal bazicha-e-atfal hai duniya mere aage.
bazicha-e-atfal hai duniya mere aage
hota hai shab-o-roz tamasha mere aage
...
go hath ko jumbishen nahin, aankhon mein to dam hai
rehne do abhi saghar-o-mina mere aage
(My translation, with some of my own poetic elements. I invite Urdu native speakers to correct me.)
The world to me is a playground of little children.
Night comes, and then day, and their play comes about.
My hands are lifeless, but in my eyes, there is a little breath.
Leave me be, let the glass and wine come about me.
--------
Spring has brought the flowers to bloom,
but there is nobody to see them.
Outside, a sultry rain has left,
having blessed a scorched earth,
but not a bird is there to see it.
In my fiery hearth sits a letter,longing to burn and be lost,
but I dare not read it.
I sit by the window, gazing into the distance,
into the blessed earth and the new clouds of spring.
I see them dying sight, and they send me words of kindness.
Burning bright, the sun in all his might,
disappears into an ocean of clouds.
Night has fallen.
Above, the sky cries tears of black starlight.
Like angels, who gaze upon the earth,
one by one, they come into being
and herald their dying creation.
Like a pigeon to her nest,
a dark moon fills a sky of completion.
I am still here,
by the window, where in the day,
I heard the words of an early rain
talking to the homebound clouds.
"Where do you go," the rain always asks,
"What do you seek that is home?"
But tonight, the rain is quiet.
The letter in my hearth lies there.
Soon, it will join the embers
and light up my humanly house.
I pick it up; I dare not read it.
Spring has brought the flowers to bloom, my friend,
but there is nobody to see them.
Aravind Suresh.
