Path to Shambhala 1933, Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York
Asif Raza
(Self-translated from Urdu)
“My poems are a dirge on the passage of God from the universe” Asif Raza
The Fountain
1
When from a subterranean source
You gushed up high,
(As milk from a mother’s breast)
You had your arms raised high
Up towards the azure sky.
Perhaps you could not withstand
The weight of your severance
And thirsted to return
To the bosom of your former unity?
But you were firmly held captive
In the clutches of the ground.
(Did you ponder
Whether the buff marble holding you back
Was your cradle —or your grave?)
In your distant memory echoed
Thunder of the savage sea—
Descendent of the subterranean night
Who once, having had torn open
The fertile womb of darkness,
Had angrily crashed into the horizon.
2
When you surfaced,
Not a trace was left in you
Of your wrathful ancestor
Rather you were self-deprecating,
Cultivated, tame, urbane.
Diminished to a slender spray,
You delicately quivered in the air,
Redolent of a string of Grecian lyre.
Opening your eyes, you discovered
A garden, ambrosial, exquisite
Dazzled you observed:
The sun was scintillating in its azure arch
(Did you ponder
Whether the moment of your ascent
Was also the moment of your fall?).
You espied a dainty bowl
Brimming with the choicest wine
That reflected back to you
Your own beguiling image.
Your sense of worth was amplified
By the spectrum of light.
The arc you formed distinctly showed
All seven colors.
The water-filled brass vessels were
Intoning their dreamy arias;
And the azure air was swelling with such ecstasy
That you could hear
The mirthful echoes issuing
From the distant silver domes.
Oblivious of your grounded existence
You felt you had no weight
And like a flame
Leaped up toward the sky,
As if wanting to touch the white-hot sun.
3
But alas!
The altitude of your watery wing,
Was but a fiction of your slumbrous mind!
You sensed yourself pulled down
By a ponderous weight.
With a scream, you started dropping down,
Continuously to the ground.
There was an aberration in the air!
As if hit by a rock,
The brass salver had rattled!
And in the center of the mirror
Ran a crack, seeking refuge.
You heard a noise erupting all around you,
Of gongs being struck with mallets
And the conches being blown.
Was it a troupe of Bacchus passing through?
The frantic flowers blew trumpets blaringly
With their tipsy heads held up high,
A file of musicians played tambourines.
The rhapsody of madness was arousing
Every tree swayed back and forth;
The fragrant air danced with wild abandon.
A drunken narcissus had tottered,
Kissed the ground
And in a frenzy, torn itself apart.
The same tree that sprinkled myriad colors
In the luminous sphere
Was now untangling its knotted roots
Under the dark abyss.
4
Tugged downwards by a savage force,
You tried to latch onto some prop in the air,
With your clawed hand,
But kept going down.
Until midway, all of a sudden you recalled
A forgotten barbaric battle cry!
It emboldened and invigorated you—
our erstwhile mellow tone became strident and defiant!
As you went down
On hearing the subterranean call
You sensed your deep-seated discord resolving.
And felt your inner void was filling up.
Then midway,
Why did you hold out
Against the savage force pulling you down
Back to your primal womb?
Was it your dread of the everlasting fall?
Or was it some transcendental anamnesis?
Now you realized that the marble floor
On which you erstwhile danced
Was built but on a burial ground.
You felt your gallant passion
Change into a shudder of horror.
As upon your breast
A beam of light sheared off
A scrap of moss.
5
After the passage of the storm,
Muted and motionless you stand
Like an obelisk of ice.
You hear a roaring thunder
Mocking you from a long distance.
The evening bathes in a basin of briny tears,
Creeping on its surface
The odor of embalmment.
A sun-adoring flower, silver-leaved,
Turns pale,
As a passing gust of frosty wind
Slaps it full across its face.
Between heaven and the earth
Two branches make a cross.
A congregation of tall trees muttering prayers,
Like mystics in communion
With the world of hidden mysteries.
In a void, an insubstantial shudder,
Coming into awareness of itself,
Embodies itself again
Into the form of a Grecian lyre string,
Acquiver in the air.
6
Every midnight,
When you are born
From the silent womb of solitude,
You hide your face under a silver sheet
And sob—
Overhead, the starry sky leans on you,
But it is too distant for you to touch.
**
Himalaya
1
Distancing myself from my low valley,
I would gaze at it with awe
For hours on end,
But always its beatific vision,
Would lacerate my heart.
Whenever at night its lofty summit
Would break into my dream,
I would be awakened from my sleep
By an azure terror.
I lift my eyes and see,
It beckons to me again!
2
Its borders verge upon the infinite.
I strain my eyes to see,
But a veil of dense fog,
Screens it from my sight.
What is my quest? I ask myself.
Is it to lose—or find my self?
Or is it oblivion that I quest after?
To what end do I stand friendless,
Upon this frozen altitude
Barren of life?
I know. it is my passion for ascension
That has brought me to these lonely heights.
I look down and espy—
Abysmal canyons imaging —
Fathomless darkness of my soul.
3
Is this the site where the sun
Ceases its futile journey?
Is this the last horizon of reality —
The point of nihilation where
The haughtiness of knowledge
Pride of intellect,
Vanity of wisdom
And the conceit of understanding—
All come to naught?
Where life is annulled,
Human codes abrogated
All cannons repealed—
Where the lone sovereign
Is the boundless Void?
4
I have the suspicion this summit is a ruse
To apprise me of my insignificance
I self-observing, scrutinize my body—
It strikes me as foreign to me—
A pile of bones sown in a bag of wrinkled skin!
I shrink back in horror!
Is it me, this grotesque figure tottering
On this pristine stairway to a celestial mountain?
Standing close to a lofty pyramid of ice—
I feel myself in proximity to eternity.
No longer do I bear upon my shoulders
The crushing burden of the leaden earth
No longer do I hear
Muffled groans of suffering humanity.
I call upon you
O mighty storm!
Circumnavigating the mountain top,
To annihilate me here and now!
For thus I might affirm my absent self.
5
But alas!
My supervening consciousness!
It reminds me that
Standing on these skyward rising steps,
I am an uninvited guest, a dubious stranger
Whose existence the mountain does not recognize.
.
But even if it does, I have the suspicion
I may be just a channel for its self-affirmation
(Behind its mask of mist
I catch a peal of sinister laughter)
6
“Who occupies this grim castle of ice”,
I shout into the wind—
Nobody replies
But in a lexicon foreign to me,
Thunder and lightning do respond—
By rolling down the mountain slope,
Huge boulders of ice.
Terror-struck,
I seek refuge inside a cave.
I can espy, beneath my eyes,
The outlines of a whitened face—
Under a glistening sheet of ice
A death-sculpted image of eternity
(Perhaps a dreamer who has found release
From the sordid bonds of existence.)
His glacial stare summons me to nihility.
But alas, my supervening consciousness:
I detect no difference
Between it and, over there, that inert rock.
7
Is this the same time-honored cave
Wherein once, raised in lap of luxury,
Prince Buddha sat,
Motionless like a rock,
Lost in his cosmic dream of Nothingness?
(His belly was sunken in—
And hollowed eyes were shut).
A snow-white wolf,
(Keeper of the holy shrine),
Peeps inside, and baring his teeth—
Growls at me.
In its wild visage, I discern
The features of a savage force—
A nemesis of humankind
A foe of human’s soaring dreams.
Insular, solid, self-contained! —
The mountain shows no fissure,
Betrays no flaws.
If there is any breach in it
It is my consciousness!
For no one else,
Not trees, nor rocks, or stars
But I—
I am the only one who asks the Question.
This pristine wilderness of snow
Milk-white (or perhaps coffin-white)
Cannot be the fabled Adam’s Mountain—
But the mythic mount Caucasus.
She who beckons to us from its summit,
Is the fairy of our soaring dreams;
And, the other that you see with her white hair,
Spread loose on the air,
Is the daughter of the mountain, Parvati
Lost in the eternal fog,
Looking for her missing Lord Shiva
(Just as man’s tormented soul
Searching for its missing God).
I have lost my sleep and appetite.
I know the ailment that I suffer from:
High altitude sickness.
8
My stomach growls—
I miss my valley down below.
With no scriptures in my hands
I, like a ghost
Of some long-dead prophet—
Or perhaps a comic double of Zarathustra—
Descend the mount.
I can see now my valley below
And, nestled in the woods, my hut,
From whose chimney rises
A slender plume of smoke.
My eyes, heavy with sleep, make out,
Hanging from the low ceiling,
A dim lantern,
In the circle of whose feeble glow
Waiting for me I see,
An earthen bowl of stew,
And in a straw basket stacked
Few loaves of bread.
**
Shipwreck by William Turner
Seafarer
1
I shiver in the southern wind;
The sky is flushed with the sunset glow.
My seaworthy ship has gone down,
Only a washed-out plank now floats.
Beguiling black water (green on the coasts),
What land is this
Upon which you have tossed my mangled body?
Whose scream is this I hear?
Is that my helmsman calling me? —
An ogre pulls his body down.
You are not alone my bosom friend!
The whole city has gone under
Into the depthless dark with you.
A ringing sound comes from stellar heights,
Perhaps a meteorite has fallen to the ground.
Is that a yawning cave I see in front of me
Or a grave inviting me?
The stone statues, keepers of the graves,
Looking daggers at me,
Rebuff my apparition with disdain.
I should have laughed off the fairytale.
Now looking back, I feel guilty—
A map drawn on a wrinkled parchment—
Of an emerald island
And many fabled cities.
But now I know:
It was just a trap laid out for me.
What shore is this on which I lie
Aborted, like a fetus?
2
I am inside my mother’s womb,
Swimming in the amniotic waters.
Outside waiting for me the years—
The sun near-rising in the east,
A cloud stretched out, like a sail,
And shimmering,
The boundless expanse of the sea.
Sweet is the brackish water!
Illuminated by star-dust particles—
(Or am I in an open grave?)
In my heart and mind
Pathways of contentions collide.
Was my bidding adieu to the shores ordained?
Or did I choose to turn my back on them—
If so under what sorcerer’s spell?
I do not know.
When I caught sight of the mythic Caucasus,
Flashing its peak far off
I transgressed all limits and thus divined:
My alphabet was inscribed in the sky!
I roamed the sea
But no emerald island I could find.
Searched all exalted cities;
But never came upon the giant fabled egg,
Nor track down the translucent carnelian
For which I trekked Damascus far and wide.
But my intransigence! I kept voyaging
From coast to coast!
3
I ran into such cavernous channels,
That my soul was shaken to its depths.
My head spun as vortices were forming;
And as each opened its massive jaws,
The sun at its meridian turned pale with fear.
As the lights, buried deep under,
Broke out upon the surface of the sea
Myriad terrors upraised their heads—
The violent winds, unfurling coffin sheets,
Were beating their iron gongs.
Terraces of stone were rising into view
With screaming elongated faces stuck to them.
Deep hatred of a doubled-over surge!
Down in its abyss,
I glimpsed toppled towers
A massive broken wing
Followed the ship at some distance—
To warn me of the threat lying ahead?
I saw a flock of blackbirds,
Pecking at the horizon
With their pointed beaks,
And chiseling,
Bleeding lines of some sinister text.
From all sides cracked its whip,
The furious wind.
A thick fog drew the limits of my eyesight.
Time was annulled.
The outlines of the calendar were blurred.
My sense of direction was forfeited.
I whirled in circles, endlessly.
4
Awakened from my blissful dream,
Naked and dripping wet,
I sit, like a fetus, curled up
The sea algae glued, leech-like,
To my naked body.
A savage land of primal tribes!
A Negroid horde lies in ambush for me,
To slam me to the ground,
And castrate me!
I tremble like a dove, in dread of a falcon.
A miracle may yet happen.
A white dove may appear from the south,
Holding in its beak a lost letter—
That reads:
“Understand, you condemned one,
You have been long dead and buried;
Your name is chiseled on a tomb-stone
So don’t resist:
Bow down to your destiny”.
I know full well:
That turning back is now impossible,
Then on this far-flung island
Why do I miss my shining parapets?
I have no son to come looking for me
Nor a wife, weaving a shawl, waiting for me.
A nondescript I am
Whose head, no laurels bedeck.
Hideous faces!
Foreheads painted with colored lines,
Weighing their daggers in their hands,
They are on the prowl for me!
Should I—the vainglorious voyager,
Admit defeat?
Come forward, daughters of the savage tribe,
Here! I bow down my weary head!
Comb and braid my matted hair,
Put a pinch of vermillion in my parting middle
Make me into a bride.
5
Waiving in the air, I see a green banner—
Has a ship cast anchor on the shore? —
I make out
A horde of votaries decked out in white robes!
I know their kind —they are looking for me!
Frightened, I rebuff these tale-spinners from afar,
I shout to them: “go back,
For I am sequestered
Into the sacred burrow of my solitude.”
6
Speak up you clammed up night!
What dark womb I am interned in?
Restore to me, to my astral eyes,
Give me back my pride,
Tell me that I am heir to a new dawn!
Buried deep down in my soul
A dead star laments:
“My nebula, why have thou forsaken me?”
My face hideous, my eyes bloodshot,
Weighing a dagger in my hand,
I lunge forward and slash the air—
In a dark recess of the wall,
My thirsting grail awaits,
Whosoever you are, step forward!
So that with your gushing blood,
I may give myself a baptismal bath—
Alas, my metamorphosis!
But I see someone coming
Swimming in my direction—
To offer me condolences?
7
I recognize the footprints on the sand—
Is it you, my —helmsman, my bosom friend—
(How every night we used to play the poker game!)
You are still alive?
Then whose was that corpse floating in the sea?
You don my full armor still?
Inscribed with my monogram,
You continue my battle underwater?
The sharp-eyed creatures, lovers of the human flesh,
Have they had their fill?
Did you spot a pile of lackluster stars?
(Whose burial rites I had long performed).
The telescope,
That was pressed tightly to our eyeballs,
Do still the curious creatures circle it?
I hear a hiss!
Perhaps a reptile’s burrow is close by! —
Ah, a snake bites at my heart!
(This coal mine reeks of Sulphur.)
In the pitch dark, I fumble with my hands,
My brain tumor is acting up again—
Give me some light.
Even now you take me for your friend?
There is no escaping you, my double;
Wading through the sea, you have come back to me,
I should confess, you are an immortal sort!
With its sharp fingernail
The crescent moon is scouring the ashes
Does under them lie buried a crimson dawn?
You want me to sail with you again?
I am ready.
I recall a washed-out plank
Left floating by the angry blast,
Come on then friend, let us depart
**
Gazelle
To proclaim your fragrant breath,
A dainty bamboo reed
Plays a merry tune upon its golden dots.
You see a garland
Amorously thrown around your neck—
Are you daydreaming?
Or are you awake?
You seem like one who
Long-held captive in a dungeon,
Suddenly finds himself transported
To a primeval forest.
You wear a bi-forked ebony crown on your head:
Is there some mythic celebration underway today?
Detecting the fragrance of the musk willow
Hiding behind the verdant veil
You draw in a deep breath.
Driven by an inner urge
The sapless wood suddenly turns green.
A pomegranate shivers, as if in a fit of fever,
And bursts open upon its bough.
Perched on a tangled branch,
The wind, an ardent musician,
Is playing on its double pipes.
A tune that disconcerts your soul—
A dainty climber swaying in the air
In ecstasy.
Agitated by the sun,
In your tender skin, you feel
A tingling sensation.
The thrill of a preamble courses
Through your heating blood;
Your frosted desire is aroused
By a spark igniting in the hyacinth.
In your mind, you have the vision
Of a slender swaying tree
Not yet bearing any fruit—
An evergreen of chastity.
The day heats up.
Burning with desire you begin to lick
The holy basil leaf:
Your tongue turns red.
Your concentrated gaze
Has the effect of a burning glass:
A straw of fragrant grass starts to smoke.
The sun has reached its meridian.
Inside the ring of flowers
A rose lies in a swoon.
The fragrant grass winks at you,
Your five senses make an assault—
Terrified, the waterfowls,
Take flight beating their wings.
Your animal passion is discharged
In a pool of warm water.
A gust of cold breeze passes, grazing you,
The glittering diamonds of your eyes
Go dark.
The wind has suspended its amorous play.
You find your feet entangled
In a thorny bush.
A prickling sharp sensation
Makes your feet stagger;
Skillful at its needlework,
A ray of sun
Is busy stitching your wound.
An inflamed flintstone shoots sparks at you.
Motionless you stand, chagrined.
Upon a bough
You see a flower drooping on its stalk—
You shudder in horror—
Is it you who have killed it?
In the leaves, a flaming eye glares at you.
Breathing hard, you stand, ashamed.
Who are you?
On whose turf do you stand?
And why?
What is your quest?
Have you lost track in the tangled wood?
You are confused.
With her hair let loose, the tenebrous hyacinth
Consummates her matrimonial rite
Upon an emerald floor.
A fragile seedling rises, quivering
From a freshly seeded bed.
There must be some vital failing at your source!
Your head spinning, mind befogged,
The mystery deepens
To which you have no clue.
“Sandalwood tree!
Do you recall my narrative?”
A finger moves in silent disavowal:
“You must know under the shade awaited me—”
With unconcern
The hollow reed averts its gaze.
“Wine is flowing
From the clusters of the ruddy grapes.
The sun too is invited to the feast
But alas!
The unfathomable secret of my soul!”
Stark naked, the harlot reed
Obscenely dances to a vulgar tune.
“It is now clear that the basil shrub
Whom I regarded as my admirer
And my confidant,
Was only a chimera.”
The tune that lilted in your blood
Is now silent.
And in your eyes
The sun is clad in mourning black.
Behind the forest’s green curtain
The rolling sound of a deep bass note startles you:
A lion’s roar?
Or does a depthless cave
Echo the forest’s dreadful song?
Your eyes reflect
Both terror and disgust.
Your friend, your host, the verdant sea
In whose inviting depth you took a plunge
Has now, beneath your eyes,
Shrunk to a muddy patch of earth
Upon which, lost, you stand.
Self-exiled,
You circle back to where you were before
A captive in the dungeon of your solitude.
“Who is it that makes the sunny day
Look like a dismal night?
Is it the shadow of my absent self?
Do I exist in the past?
Or in the future?
If I am an ardent lover, then who is my beloved?
Whose heart is it that I dwell in?”
A beautiful image is reflected
In the mirror of your soul.
Your eyes wander
Searching in all directions
For a way to escape—
At some distance, you see a forking path
But, as if hit by an arrow, your heart is split in two.
You catch the thick smell of death;
And see a camphor tree inviting you
(Whose head is ringed by no halo of light).
“What is it?
Shining under a tree—
Replenished neither by a river nor a cloud,
A watery grave?
No, it is a water spring,
Whose surface has a silver sheen!”
Seeing a ray of hope,
You stride towards it with hastened steps,
—it is a mirror of horror!
Reflecting back to you,
Your mud-splattered body.
Do you recall the name of your native land, gazelle?
Is it called “the Garden of Eden?”
Mute, barren, alone,
Its dream of fulfillment not realized,
The dark blue indigo coiled on itself.
Its will to live forfeited,
A fruit dangles
Having hung itself from a leafy branch.
Your head is bowed in reflection
You are awakened to your consciousness of self
And realize:
That which you seek is Nothingness,
It is the Absent you are looking for.
Losing their color,
The leaves scatter in all directions,
The pages of your tragic narrative
Are now compiled
Stitched together by your awareness.
The wailing sound that echoes in your memory,
Is it that of a wounded heron
Held captive in a watery cage.
Head buried in its feathers,
A swan stands still:
A silver crown glitters in its dreams.
Raising your head
You see before your eyes:
A straight, illuminated path
At whose end is awaiting you
A beautiful fabled garden.
Since, after your baptismal bath
Your soul is purified,
You feel weightless
And walk towards it dauntlessly.
With an upsurge of your melancholy consciousness
You inundate the virgin tree,
Unvisited by any vegetal spirit,
On its branch an ebony-dark flower
Opens its folded petals to receive
Your aromatic breath.
**
The Prisoner
Lion of clay,
You have the nerve to growl at us!
What arrogance!
Buffoon! You think you frighten us?
Dislodge this misconception from your mind!
You think that by pawing at your prison door
You will rend a gash in it?
Don’t you know that it is cast in steel?
You glare at us menacingly,
Do you still harbor the misconception
That you can strike terror in our hearts?
Understand that, bought and sold,
You are now our slave.
Look! Our children too have come with us,
To watch your acrobatic stunt.
Open your mouth,
For they have brought a treat for you—
A bag chock-full
Of puffed cheese balls!
Show us the tricks that you have learned,
Come, hold your head between your legs
And do a somersault for us.
Prove that you can bow to our bidding,
Or else—your trainer knows the way
To force you to obey,
Such as whip you,
Or prod your body with an iron spike
If that is what you like.
Our sense of power is inversely proportional
To the degree of your acquiescence,
We derive satisfaction from watching you
Deferential in your bearing, and docile.
Come, touch the ground with your forehead,
To pay homage to us,
Open your mouth wide enough
To let a hairy head go down
Deep in your throat.
Are you the same majestic being
Whose head once wore a royal crown?
Are you the same
Whose mighty paw
An acacia tree bent down to scratch
With its sturdy thorn?
Are you the same
Whom, each morning, the mountain used to proffer
Its blooming flower of the sun?
Or are you an impostor
Camouflaging in a lion’s skin?
Do you recall your mythical abode
From which you watched
Heaven meeting the earth?
You stood with your back turned to the downstream
Facing the upstream
Contemplating,
If the moon and the Milky Way were scratch marks
Of your mighty paw.
Sight-worthy was your majesty,
Your dignity and grace.
No one could dare to meet your eyes.
When you thundered your challenge to the foe,
Your voice would crack —
The dwelling of the fairies and the giants—
It would cleave Mount Caucasus itself!
With your mighty breath
You would blow the dirt away,
And lick the blooming flower
Of the freshly opened wound.
With the river offering you
Its mirror of crystal-clear water
Who was it that encroached
Upon your contemplation?
In any case, when they spotted you,
You were sitting on a wharf,
Striking, in pain, your paw, against the dirt.
When your foes
Tossed their net upon your mighty form,
They say that you did not resist at all,
But impassively let them enmesh you in their trap.
Only your eyes reflected an unnamed horror.
Thus they report.
Your tongue soiled with dirt,
The sole of your muddy foot
Bore an abscess wrought by a sturdy thorn—
Thus recount your nursing foes.
Don’t glance back to your lost kingdom
It will not pay to grieve.
You must know your sickness is incurable.
So blink away the tears from your sticky eyes.
The condescending multitude awaits you, intently.
Perform your act
To the languid clapping of a weary crowd.
******
Note -- All poems © Asif Raza. From his unpublished collection Whispers from the Shadow Side. --The Beacon would like to thank Asif Raza for generously offering yet another selection from his self-translated collection.
Asif Raza writes poetry in Urdu and translates many of them into English. His poems have been published in several literary journals in India and Pakistan. Several of his original poems as well as his English translations of them were published in the now defunct bilingual journal, Annual of Urdu Studies, University of Wisconsin. He has authored three collections of poems: Bujhe Rangon ki Raunaq (Splendor of Faded colors), Tanhai ke Tehwar(Festivals of Solitude) and Aaeene Ke Zindani (Captives of the Mirror) published in two editions, the first one in Delhi, India (under the supervision of Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, who also wrote its foreword) and the other in Karachi, Pakistan.After a doctorate in Sociology, he taught at the University of Missouri, Columbia, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb and a senior college in Texas. He lives in Tyler, Texas
Asif Raza in The Beacon
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