Abhay K. has listed below some of the best poems from Beyond Borders: An anthology of SAARC poetry edited by Ashok Vajpayee published by Rainbow Publishers in 2002 in association with Academy of Fine Arts and Literature, New Delhi
Fatima Hassan
I can also Live like the Wind
For you
I am the bitter Neem tree
Its fruit you cannot taste
Even if you wanted to
All you can do is rest for a while
In its shade
For I am also green in colour.
Some time back a jinn used to live in me
But after a long journey
I refused to recognize him as a jinn
And he was offended.
I did not try to placate him
Since the lessons the passing seasons have taught me
Include this lesson:
I can also live like the wind.
Translated from Urdu by Asif Aslam Farrukhi
Perveen Shakir
Where Do I figure in Your Life, My Love?
Where do I figure in your life, my love?
In the freshness of the morning breeze
Or in the sheen of the evening star.
In the reluctant drizzle
Or in the laughing rain,
In the cool of moonlit night
Or in the indifference of afternoons.
In deep thoughts
Or in some casual tune?
How do you take me?
As a puff of cigarette
A toast for weather?
Of that famous temporal tragedy
In which one love affair is dead
And the other not yet born.
Am I your summer resort?
Or just one long weekend?
Where do I figure in your life, my love?
(translated from Urdu by Lesilie Lavinge and Baidur Bakht)
M.A. Nuhman
When I was waiting for the White Dove
I was waiting in my courtyard
For the arrival of the white dove
The hawk came first
And took away my chiks
Then
Came a vulture
And landed on the coconut tree
In my courtyard
It purges a volley of shells
Tearing apart my house and living
My souls withers
And I am refugee once again.
(Translated from Tamil by Sumathy and the author)
