Remembering Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

ہم کہ ٹھہرے اجنبی  اتنی مداراتوں کے بعد 

پھربنیں  گے آشنا کتنی ملاقاتوں کے بعد 

کب نظر میں آ ے گی بے داغ سبزے کی بہار 

خوں کے دھببے دھلیں گے کتنی برساتوں کے بعد 

دل تو چاہا پر شکست دل نے ہی مہلت نہ دی 

کچھ گلے شکوے ہی کر لیتے  مناجاتوں کے بعد 

تھےبہت  بے درد لمحے ختم درد عشق کے 

تھیں بہت بے مہر صبحیں مہربان راتوں کے بعد 

ان سے جو کہنے گئے تھے فیض جان صدقہ کے 

ان کہی ہی رہ گئی وہ بات سب باتوں کے بعد  

After those many encounters, that easy intimacy,
. we are strangers now –
After how many meetings will we be that close again?

When will we again see a spring of unstained green?
After how many monsoons will the blood be washed
. from the branches?

So relentless was the end of love, so heartless –
After the nights of tenderness, the dawns were pitiless,
. so pitiless.

And so crushed was the heart that though it wished
. it found no chance –
after the entreaties, after the despair — for us to
. quarrel once again as old friends.

Faiz, what you’d gone to say, ready to offer everything,
. even your life –
those healing words remained unspoken after all else had
. been said.

Sign of a classic poetry is that it could be perceived in multiple ways.

Today on his birth anniversary when I am going through Faizs poetry, I came to a halt at this poem, although he wrote it on the separation of East Pakistan from the western side, yet it feels as if Faiz wrote this poem for the turmoil that is going inside me.

https://soundcloud.com/atif-a-1/hum-ke-thehre-ajnabi-nayyara