April 23, 2012
Poem: "Fiction"
after Mohammed Iqbal
"Why didn't you make me eternal?"
Beauty asked God one day,
who replied: "The world's fiction
is carved from nothingness.
In changing colors you were born:
true beauty is ephemeral."
The moon overheard this dialogue,
beamed it to the morning star
who woke the dawn, whispering sky's secret
to the dewdrop, earth's guardian.
Dew drenched the rose petals,
and Spring left the garden weeping.
Mohammed Iqbal (1877 -1938) one of the two great South Asian poets of the
20th Century (the other was Faiz Ahmed Faiz) advocated ceaseless endeavor,
writing with equal ease in Persian, Urdu, and English. He was knighted by the
British but is rarely called Sir Mohammed.
Translated from the Urdu by Rafiq Kathwari, guest poet at 3Quarks Daily.
[Click Urdu version to enlarge.]
Posted by S. Abbas Raza at 12:15 AM | Permalink
Comments
Rafiq Kathwari thanks all those well wishers in New York, London, and Kashmir who helped transliterate the original Urdu, revealing many complex nuances. However, they are not responsible for the shortcomings of the poem presented here, which is at best a Version created by the translator.
Posted by: Rafiq Kathwari | Apr 23, 2012 5:44:02 AM
lovely
Posted by: Hannah Green | Apr 23, 2012 11:39:52 AM
"Beauty is a form of resistance to the world's fury
THANK YOU, Rafiq.
Rosenda
Posted by: Rosenda | Apr 24, 2012 3:33:02 AM
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