The Eager Traveler
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Even in the torture chamber, I was the lucky one;
When each lottery was over, unaccountably I had won.

And even the mightiest rivers found accessible refuge in me;
Though I was called an arid desert, I turned out to be the sea.

And how sweetly I remember you, oh, my wild, delectable love—
Like the purest white blossoms, on talented branches above.

And while I’m half-convinced that folks adore me in this town,
Still, all the hands I kissed held knives and tried to shake me down.

You lost the battle, my coward friend, my craven enemy,
When, to victimize my lonely soul, you sent a despoiling army.

Lost in the wastelands of vast love, I was an eager traveler,
Like a breeze in search of your fragrance, a vagabond explorer.

Published in the anthology Eastern Promise



I Cannot Remember
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I once was a poet too (you gave life to my words), but now I cannot remember
Since I have forgotten you (my love!), my art too I cannot remember

Yesterday consulting my heart, I learned
that your hair, lips, mouth, I cannot remember

In the city of the intellect insanity is silence
But now your sweet, spontaneous voice, its fluidity, I cannot remember

Once I was unfamiliar with wrecking ***** and ruins
But now the cultivation of gardens, I cannot remember

Now everyone shops at the store selling arrows and quivers
But neglects his own body, the client he cannot remember

Since time has brought me to a desert of such arid forgetfulness
Even your name may perish; I cannot remember

In this narrow state of being, lacking a country,
even the abandonment of my fellow countrymen, I cannot remember



Ranjish hi Sahi ("If it means Grief, so be it")
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Come, even with anguish, even to torture my heart;
Come, even if only to abandon me to torment again.

Come, if not for our past commerce,
Then to faithfully fulfill the ancient barbaric rituals.

Who else can recite the reasons for our separation?
Come, despite your reluctance, to continue the litanies, the ceremony.

Respect, even if only a little, the depth of my love for you;
Come, someday, to offer me consolation as well.

Too long you have deprived me of the pathos of longing;
Come again, my love, if only to make me weep.

Till now, my heart still suffers some slight expectation;
So come, ***** out even the last flickering torch of hope!



No Explanation! (I)
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Please don't ask me how deeply it hurt!
Her sun shone so bright, even the shadows were burning!



No Explanation! (II)
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Please don't ask me how it happened!
She didn't bind me, nor did I free myself.



Alone
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Why are you sad that she goes on alone, Faraz?
After all, you said yourself that she was unique!



Separation
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Faraz, if it were easy to be apart,
would Angels have to separate body from soul?



Time
by Ahmad Faraz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

What if my face has more wrinkles than yours?
I am merely well-worn by Time!



Ahmad Faraz [1931-2008], born Syed Ahmad Shah, was a Pakistani poet generally considered to be one of the greatest modern Urdu poets. Faraz was a poet accessible to ordinary readers due to his “fine but simple style of writing.” Ethnically a Hindkowan, he studied Persian and Urdu at Edwards College, then at Peshawar University, where he became a lecturer after receiving his Masters. During his time in college, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Ali Sardar Jafri impressed him and became influences on his own work. Faraz was born in Kohat, Pakistan to Syed Muhammad Shah Barq. In an interview he recalled how his father once bought clothes for him and his brother on Eid. He didn't like the clothes meant for him, preferring the ones given to his elder brother. This lead him to write his first couplet:

Laye hain sab ke liye kapre sale se (He brought clothes for everybody from the sale)
Laye hain hamare liye kambal jail se (For me he brought a blanket from jail)

Faraz was an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s military dictatorship, saying, “My conscience will not forgive me if I remain a silent spectator of the sad happenings around us. The least I can do is to let the dictatorship know where it stands in the eyes of the concerned citizens whose fundamental rights have been usurped. I ... refuse to associate myself in any way with the regime ..."

Keywords/Tags: Ahmad Faraz, Pakistani, Urdu, Persian, translation, couplet, eager, traveler, love, mrburdu

Among faded photographs piled up
in this grey-haired archive
your faces still shine like the smiling suns
that used to greet me - that little child
you called bunsô, the dawn’s speck
still in these brown eyes -
in the quiet and cold early mornings,
as I stared to the eastern skies
orange above the dearly missed Malarayat
of blues, and greens, and cones, and salakot
and as the last of the kabag bats
- guts filled with the insects of the night -
go home between our roof and ceiling,
the warmth of your call were tight hugs.

Your old picture comes alive -
like the first gulps of kapeng barako encouragements
that drained down the bullied throat of yesteryears
- the old radio broadcasts loudly the silenced tears
as the dozen hens were cackling the latest from the Beatles
and the lone rooster belts the Only You of the Platters
That time I tossed and threw far
the white grains of tattered notebooks to scatter
for the newly hatched chicks to patiently gather
Everything was an Amorsolo-replica, a summer
of joyful harvesting, harvest time, harvester . . .

Hope was the bottomless well beside the mango tree
The pig pens my palace, the chicken shed my tower of ivory
The rabbits are lords- and ladies-in-waiting
I was their prince in a kingdom that I made free
from hordes of aswang, tikbalang, kapre, dwende . . .
nothing to fear, really
but for the hairy caterpillars
hiding among the yellow confetti
of ******* trees, in the backyard
of distant day-dreaming days of dreams.

You made the noontime suns brightly lit
the roads and crossings the three little pigs
of my inner self have to trot,
for the distant future was a pack of cunning wolves
ready to devour all my mortal miscalculations,
infantile indecisions, and immature decisions,
and loud and strong they huffed, and puffed and blew
my self-esteem, whatever was left, beaten black and blue.
A hero plays mahjong, nothing really new,
as my teen life’s pages fell, no Redeemer ever knew
It was like tiles of dominoes - one after the other - on cue.

And yet at the siesta time of this human life,
your guiding photons allowed
this tired body with a ******* soul, yet beating heart
to rest, picking up each of the pieces
and the jigsaw of experiences
now make sense, a rainbow shows
as the skies emptied their jars
of tempting clouds like cotton candies
into a downpour of doubts, of tempests
of feelings of emptiness, of cyclones
of thoughts of worthlessness –
the suns were shining always
after all
behind the clouds
those clouds

In the sunsets of your lives
the rays still shone far beyond
the twilight time and in these humid tropics
your mem’ries are auroras in the darkest of my nights
even in my sleep, the dreams are video clips
always set inside that old Marauoy home
reminding me, there was that child in there, alone . . .

These days, the skies, the winds, remind me
of stormy days in the forgotten simplicity of Lipa,
you tied the windows as the gusts
threatened to grab them,
and then, the warm jackets and blankets
of your reassuring words, “we’ll be alright”
erased the traumas, blew away the fears.
reminding me, there was that child in there,
you dried his tears . . .

That child’s still here inside my decades-old heart,
like a prayerful devotee in an agnostic cathedral,
missing your hugs
longing for your cheers.

Naampat na ang dugô,
patay na ang mga bayanì
Pipi’t ampaw nakatayo
ang katahimikang naghahari
Tulog ang diyos, Impô,
mga aswang nakangiti
Matatapos na ang “Aba po!”
lasing pa rin ang kudyapi

Kahit matapang ang kape
Di mahulasan ang kapre.

Ginayumang mamamayan
Tila bulag, tanga’t mangmang

Kapag may nagugulantang
Lalayas na rin, ‘kita’y iniiwan.

Ito
ang alamat
ng taumbayang niloloko
at patuloy na nagpapaloko;
ng bayang pinagsamantalahan,
ng bayang pinabayaan.

Bumalikwas ang madaling araw
Mapula ang sinag ng malamlam na ilaw
Mula sa pagkagupiling ng iniwang gabi
Isang paos na tilaok pinilit magsabi
Tila inutil na tuod ang unan at papag
Walang tugon ni tikhim man lang
para sa likod at ulong lumapat

Mapagkunwari ang kulambo
Lamok pala’y kalaguyo
Akala ng balana’y karamay
Sa magdamag na paglalamay
Batang ipinaglihi sa Sto Niño
Ibebenta pala sa demonyo

Naglaga ng kape ang among kapre
Butil daw ay hinirang ng musang na tumae
Galapong pala’y napanis na sapal
Nilagyan ng dagta ng nilinlang na bangkal
Bang-aw na ang panatikong tagasunod
Lublob na sa pusali, puwit pa rin ang hinihimod:

          Sayang ang kita, mamaya’y bayaran na!
          Copy-paste-post - sige pa!
          Ang perang kikitain ay mas mahalaga
          May paburger pa sina konsi at mayora
          O e 'no kung nasa poso ***** tanang kaluluwa?

Bayaning tangan ay tabak, tila nakanganga
Kinain na ng anay ang papel at pluma.