Three Poems by Sara Shagufta Translated from Urdu

By Sara Shagufta and Arshi Yaseen

These poems from Sara Shagufta’s book Aankhein and translated from the original Urdu by Arshi Yaseen.

The Milestone Accompanies for Hours

At the bosom of the heaven,

The woe keeps on spinning the wheel.

The Milestone accompanies for hours,

But the journey doesn’t end anywhere.

The night is ready to meet the dawn,

But my distance is not yet over.

My children’s misfortunes

Have stained my clothes,

And the aloneness continues to lick my blood.

The straws I gather from the ridge of the suburb,

The Sun transforms them into the woes.

It’s the eyes, that caused my dreams to burn,

I remain under the sneaky watch of my own coffin.

Two-Draughts Thirst More

She awakens by the touch of the hunger,

The snapping of the boughs,

Yet two-draughts thirst more.

God offers hunger,

In how many flavours.

O’ Gardener!

That flower,

Is of my doll’s colour.

And in the sunflower,

Thou have planted my hair.

My shoes are alike the black rose,

And this white flower,

Looks like my bread’s colour.

Eyes’ Strands

I, who standing at the crossroad,

Wish to return to my curve.

He, who’s stuck in the blood,

Desires to live a bit more …

With the wall the shadow might have become one,

As the grieves are soothing in the ocean.

Thou steal the sunshine even from the setting sun,

I rather evade the little darkness of the dawn.

And the weary star of the daybreak,

When left all alone on the firmament,

I regard that moment.

Each passing day on this earth

Does sever a part of my years.




About the authors:

Sara Shagufta (1954-1984) was a Pakistani female poet. The major concerns in her poetry are her disillusionment with her married life, the separation from her children, and unsatisfied passions. She went through clinical depression for most of her life and after two unsuccessful suicide attempts finally committed suicide at the age of twenty-nine.

Arshi Yaseen is a graduate in English Literature from Lahore, Pakistan, currently working on translating Urdu poetry and writing short fiction.