And When You See ...

And when you see ...
the night getting longer than usual
and the sun refusing to rise
then call off your morning walk
and switch on once again
all the lights in the porch
which you had turned off

And when you see ...
the wind get nervous
stepping on to the plain trails
and the mountains move away
silently at nights
and the trees take refuge along the roads
running away from the jungles
then keep your backpack ready
to embark upon the journey, anywhere, anytime

And when you see ...
the world is surrounded by an unseen pandemic
and the funeral counts
surpass the number of births
and the man is afraid of seeing another of his kind
and has started hiding his face
and the isolation has become a compulsion
then just keep your door ajar
for those who'll never come

And when you see ... 
the children get bored with your chit-chat
and your knowledge and experience
is nothing but a useless thing to them
then just leave them to their own devices
and start reading the books once again
that you had read long ago

And when you see ...
as you taste the dish made of truth,
silence befalls the tablecloth
and the taste of a lie
gets popular amongst all
then refrain from licking your fingers
lest your fingerprints get dissolved
and you are labelled an alien in your own country
on failing the bio-metric verification

And when you see ... 
the love gets scarce in the life
and the edibles more plentiful
then in your room full of books
just across the window
lounging on your bed
sipping the forbidden drink
listening to the music
revisiting all the unwritten poems in the heart
wait for a peaceful death
It is said, she doesn’t betray
the one who seeks her truly. 

(Translated from the original Urdu into English by Kamran Awan)