Though the journey was of few feet,
It took my entire life to reach there.

If you bury me, bury me
On the outskirts of my village,
A tree I shall become,
Berries shall grow upon me
Beckoning the blossom to come,
Of my funeral:
The cortège will not be a lot,
The path is a few feet,
Tirelessly you will all reach;
And there on the outskirts,
Better you cremate me,
Let my smoke fly in the air
I don't want the earth to carry
The burden of my useless corpse.

Yesterday was autumn,
Today is spring—
Fields of saffron and walnuts,
Running wells and rivers sing,
Sings the glory of spring.
An adieu to the autumn lights,
And greetings to the summer,
From the Himalayas,
When the fireflies come here
I hope tomorrow will be summer

Here stands him, on a buffalo
Blue-skinned in donning red robes,
He leads a very tiring journey,
A journey where end all the roads;
I haven't yet pleased my Shiva,
Spare me some time,
Let me do one last Abhisheka,
While you count the sins of my lifetime;
Do lower your mace and noose,
And hell or heaven, Let me choose—
And now what I foresee, O' Yama,
If this soul abandons me,
I will be left with a heap of bones
And stinking flesh of no use,
Kindly leave this soul, Let it be.

Shall ever bloom this sleepy face?
Many a moon passed by
And passed many a sun,
But never returned her grace;
Although the winds are sweet
Upon a hill where the horses run,
And she eats dried roses
In the memories of someone;
I speak the word of the truth
Which is denied by everyone,
Barely anyone will take care of her
When my day is done;
Horses shall halt—
And shall halt the breathing winds
Even if I head to a heavenly place
Shall never bloom this sleepy face.

From the Himalayan peaks,
A tedious firefly came wandering
Looking for someone in the village,
On glimpsing her,
She sat on her cheek
And whispered in her ears:

The journey of miles is over
Across the peaks,
The moon that used to sink
Is now under my feet.

In the shade of the crescent moon,
A silvery-silken veil wears a face,
Celestial spirits run from the crematories
And gathered in one place;
The spirits died of treason
Unrolled their boxes of grief,
And wail at the end of the season;
They have been sleeping for years
Surely more than a hibernating bear,
They do not sound friendly,
As revengeful and rageful they appear;
But the holy light of Indian basil
Keeps them apart,
And so I light a lamp every day
And from my gate, the spirits depart.

Shall I stop writing you letters?
If you don't want to respond.
My time has come, O' dear!
Just when you feel—
This old man will die now,
Prepare to cheer!
For what you desired all your life
Is finally going to happen,
In his court, you will be a sinner
But in this lovely hour of sins,
Cheer for love loses
And the fear of a wife wins.

To light a lantern all I need:
A matchstick and a matchbox
And a will to light the lantern.
Scents from the bowers
Come wandering around me,
Flowers seem sad to reach me
They were happy on the tree,
The scents are beautiful
But it didn't come alone,
Winds came with it
And the lantern is blown;
It is the beginning, death is no end
No market sells such good wills
Where should I go, my friend?

A couple of centaurs clopping
Over the grass,
Shakes my world like an earthquake
When I behold her, the Indian lass;
She is working in the fields
Under the ardent sun,
Her face is in a veil
And nigh her feet rabbits run;
For a bud that wants to be a flower
In sweat, her beauty is steeped,
Like wheat, she is gold-tanned
Ready to get reaped;
Beauty isn't slave to the riches
Is now peacefully proved,
When her lips, O' the sweet lips,
Murmured an ode to her beloved.

Where ever my gaze run sees death,
Butterflies mourning over a meadow
And many a tulip at their last breath,
The scent of saffron from the fields
Come and die at my wandering feet,
O' the most beautiful valley Kashmir
Where there the chinar trees greet,
What has happened to your soul?
Show me your true form—
And bless me whole.

The winds are going back to the sea
Whistling through the Himalayas,
And the lovely fall is no more lovely,
The lakes robed in brown leaves
And the brown boats still for long,
Makes me more dumb and dead
To the skylark's delicious song;
This heart weeps for everything
Every petal of this valley
And the flower that wants to sing.

In the moonlit sky of Gulmarg nights,
A child by the street is happy,
To his eyes are the blissful sights;
The scent of fresh Wazwan blooms,
At his little feet, cold and dry,
The stars are playful marbles to him
And a coin glimmering in the sky;
I can see him roaming the green lea
O' the land of seven apples,
If I see, the world of joy is in me

I am becoming an envious man,
Day by day, I am losing hope
No wages, No job I need
Blessings are all I carve for
A sparrow flying:
Through the autumn mountains
Wants to reach me, reached never.
The weight in my boots is doubled
And this beautiful life is troubled,
My time has never come
But somewhere in my heart, I know:
This time, too, shall pass.

O' my grace, make me a dandelion
Let the winds be my best friend
And fly me beyond the clouds
Of sorrows that never end,
Make me reach the destination:
A place where eternity lives on,
Where there are no wars,
Only exists peace and harmony
In the presence of sacred stars;
And after flying for hours
I shall fall on his effulgent feet,
Let this dandelion be thy slave,
Let this dandelion be complete.

To thy beloveds say goodbye,
To behold the glorious moon
Grow old soon and die.

Though this corpse shall disappear
The soul shall live forever,
Everything else will fade away
And the seeds of spirituality shall never,
From a few yards away,
I shall behold the glorious moon,
Monks and priests farewelling me
So that they can grow old soon.

Since the day I was born
I am dying minute by minute,
To me no grief is unknown,
Ghosts and spirits talk to me
Everyday when I brood alone,
I wish if I shall die:
Shall die in the arms of moonlight
Friends and family encircling me,
A beautiful smile on face
And my eyes locked at thee,
Scent of fresh roses in the air,
Good and bad deeds recall
The traces of love everywhere,
Between my lips lives his name
In the lovely old prayer.

No matter if it is wither or bloom
Love or hate — droughts or rain,
Spiders dwell in the sunflowers
And do not leave home
If there's a hurricane;
Birds in their wooden nests
And bees in their honeycomb,
Into the overgrown gardens,
The dragonflies roam,
None flees, everyone is home;
Listen to the waters—
Silver in the oysters
And the lakes holding foam,
Be like this little green spider
And desert not this lovely home.

A girl from south India
Unrolled her grief to me:
Being black is like a curse
No one approaches me
To me, every day is a tempest
The ocean seems black,
And so the sky;
No one seems to be smiling back.

O' dear, Believe in yourself;
I have heard of a boy:
The most beautiful of all
He's black, his name is Krishna;
Color is in the eyes and if it hurts
You haven't found the right eyes
Of the burden on your head
I shall make it lighter
I shall steal light from the stars
To make you a bit brighter,
And of your scars
I shall plea to Krishna that
You'll shine among the stars.

Across the fields of saffron,
My beloved has been gone,
Looking at the withered fields,
Early dawn a peacock cries.

Chinars have shed four times
And eight times my faith
The lantern is getting dim,
I see the moon, he is late;
Till date, seventeen sweaters
I've weaved, looking at the gate,
Sitting on the chair
Mumbling the same hymn
I look at the fields,
Neither returns bloom nor him.

Beneath the newly sprouted lotus
A frog is swimming,
In daylight, he didn't come out
For there's an army of frogs around it,
For he's shy,
For he thinks that the lotus will not like him,
But when the crickets cry
And the milkmoon shows up
The frog comes over nigh the lotus
And whispers his secrets to it.

Midnight, a donsy of gnomes
Appears in my garden,
Robed in bright red-brown tints
Wandering around like a warden,
Phrygian caps on their head,
Boots of birch bark that grows on a hill,
And a wide leather belt on the waist
Holding a knife, hammer, and drill—
The little dwarfs with
Wrinkled faces not because of age,
But for the grin and laugh
That they hold in their gaze,
Though no treasure I have,
Neither do I have an outstanding fate
Nor a glossy golden gate,
Still, they come and roam
Without any greed— without any hate.

When I will be cremated—
And my bones will be ground
Into a paste, If not married:
People will come and surround
For my body is heavy to be carried;
My house will turn into a market,
A market of lies and grief,
And on the outskirts of my village
They will take me—to a place of great relief,
But I will be burned fast for spillage;
Though all my sorrows will end
And will end the long awaiting of a friend.

If the god is true—
Why don't he fly me through the stars
And end these holy wars,
And why are they many?
When he is one,
When he is the only father to many a son,
When he is mine as well as thine—
Be his child and surrender,
Behold a day from the eyes of mine:
I see a man in peace
And another man watering chinars
Children playing again in the streets
And I am flying through the stars,
All the bloodshed come to cease
And finally has ended all the holy wars.

And all summer— all winter,
He grazed a flock of sheep,
Upon the fertile lands, they ran
Down into a valley, dark and deep;
He chased and took them back
And they again grazed,
And they did this for hours
Still, he was not praised;
He sweat a lot and never flaunted
At noon, he melts and got tan,
No one was about to praise
For he was just a pastoral man;
And one day, when the sheep ran
He never returned back
From the deep-down valley,
Neither he nor the sheep's pack;
The praised ones searched him
And found not even a grass petal,
Declaring him dead—
They finally praised him to settle;
To settle just for others' goodwill,
Mourning him in every house
They drummed him like metal.

At the mountainside, he's buried
He who was beheaded of perfidy
Died in sumor blessed with snow,
At night upon his hidden grave
Moss and wilderness grow;
Whoever passes by that mountain
Leaves nothing to his grave
But the filthy footprints on him,
He's lived a life without remorse,
I hope he who they are looking for
Shall have returned to his source.

Wondrous of seven worlds,
Where there the waters can fly
And the airs can float,
Worlds must-see before you die,
As far as the eye can see, I see:
The mightiest of seven seas,
The grandest of seven skies,
The most verdant of the leas,
Everything's seen to these eyes,
A very last plea to my sweet:
Make me forget all this
And make me rest on thy feet.

A gust from the sea shook the tree
And the leaves fell one by one,
The wet roads greeted them well
And the end of my story has begun
As I ambled on them like farewell;
None will remember— me and you,
Someday we too will be gone
Like these mulberry leaves,
And then fresh leaves at dawn
Shall rise a bit above the grieves;
The rain has its petrichor at most
And my childhood flashes back,
The time will hit this mulberry tree
Closing my story in mid-track,
With another gust from the sea.

Where to go and where to not?
Every place is burning my heart,
Honeycomb has become bitter
And the bees depart;
Landed on the gems and golds
As they look like honey
But neither they are sweet
Nor kind, only they shine sunny,
Bright and sunny—
Wages I have none but a heart
Rich of love and grace,
But none desires this kindness
For this identifies a poor face;
Now I don't want bees to return
For the honeycomb is dead,
Eagles have eaten it and the rest
Is saved for their children's bed.

O' my beloved, Visit me here
Amid the romantic breezes,
There's a plea in my eyes
Don't you see it?
This poor man pleases,
Shikaras lit with golden lights
Float like fireflies,
Hands in hand in the moonlight,
The finest love we will make
Euphoria will be in the skies
And we will sail on Dal lake.

A month in three sixty-five days
When love flies like a butterfly
And everything resurrects
Everything that was about to die,
Roses, gardens, and mangoes
Blush and bloom like a new bride
At the late end of February,
Skies flood all with a floral tide;
Warriors send their messages
To the departed souls
And beckon them back
Unrolling their unwritten scrolls.

O' mother, "Shall it ever end, this war?"
I am forgetting: my friends,
Family, faces, names, promises
Those night-outs and weekends;
And the breakfast I used to have,
The morning chants of lord Vishnu,
The burning incense of lemongrass
The birds pecking the window glass–
When shall those days return
And when will these days pass?
I can bear this grief and cage,
What about her,? mother;
If the time has come, Let me kiss:
Kiss the childhood, kiss you and her
Ere' it will end me and my sister.

Scented roses at bloom—
On the top of a green hill
Swaying all alone under the daystar,
And white pigeons roamed the city
On reaching the end of the war;
Handshakes and spies are buttered,
Toward the end of the day
Finally, the white flags fluttered;
After a long time—
The years of smoke and gunpowder
I can listen to the birds,
The winding trees — the wafting seas
And can finally smell the settling herds,
But for both of us, the time's over
In heavens, we will make our home—
Though on Earth, It was
Built and destroyed like a honeycomb.

If the chinars are my home
Sorrows are my guest,
Guests that visit me often
And to whom I desire rest,

O' thou effulgent deity,
I leave before you, my sorrows;
Autumns were always my friend,
Bright clouds, Lovely winds
And rich meadows I want to attend,
This world has been cruel to me
I have lived a life of great misery,
Now this man is full of sleep,
Let me kiss thy effulgent feet
And end this never-ending weep.