Ali Sardar Jaafri - Urdu poet

[ This poem was written by Ali Sardar Jaafri, a famous Indian Urdu poet. Jaafri has won several awards including Padma Shri, Iqbal Samman, Soviet Land Nehru Award, and most recently India's Jnanpith Award. A recent Hindustan Times article discusses the remarkable juxtaposition of this poem with Shovana Narayanan's Kathak dance composition. The following is an English translation by Philop Nikolayev.]

That day will come without fail:
the lamps of the eyes will go out,
the lotuses of the palms will wilt.

From the leaf of the tongue
the butterflies of speech
will flutter away forever.

Still laughing like myriad blossoms,
all faces will fall and scatter
in the depths of the darkest sea.

The strife of blood, the throb of heart
and every melody will go mute.

On the blue velvet of space
that luminous crystal of diamond,
and these my heaven and earth,
the nights and the mornings all
will shed tears of dew
on the human handful of dust.

Every cherished thing will go, plucked
from memory's fine pagan shrine.
And then no friend will ask a friend:
"Why don't we see Sardar today?"

Yet I will return here yet
to speak out of the mouths of babes,
to warble with the tongues of birds.

When in the earth seeds burst out laughing
and green-fingered sprouts tease the soil
I, leaf by leaf and bud by bud,
will open all my eyes,
balancing on green palms drops of dew.

I will take on the hue of henna,
the harmony of a ghazal.
And like a young bride's virgin cheek,
I'll glow through every bridal veil.

When chilly winds bring on their tails
the season of desolation,
under the traveler's young feet
my laughter will resound in the dry leaves.

All the gold rivers of the earth,
all the blue lakes of heaven
will brim with my existence.

The world will see under my star
every tale become my story,
where every lover is Sardar
and every love is my Sultana.

I'm but a fleeting moment's flop
in time's uncanny magic-room,
I'm but a vacillating drop
on its brief trip through light and gloom,
as from the goblet of the past
into the future's cup I flow.

I sleep and wake up as I go,
I wake and fall asleep as fast,
a centuries-old game: the breath
of immortality in death.