I Will Not Sing

 

I Will Not Sing

Nādim’s 

I will not sing—

        I will sing today no rose song, no song of the nightingale, 

                No song of the iris, no hyacinth song,

                           No song to ravish nor song intoxicated

                                       Not languor’s sweet, slow songs—

        Not the least song—

I will not sing. 

Not when the dust cloud of war skins the iris for its hue—

        When the thunder of guns tears out the tongue from the nightingale—

                When I hear the clamor and clatter of chains, here 

where there were hyacinths—

        where the diseased eye of lightning is webbed closed,  

                and mountains recoil 

back onto their haunches; when black death gathers close 

        cloud tops to embrace—

I will not sing—Now 

warlord and bureaucrat stand

girt about, eyeing my Kashmir.

I will not sing—

        I will sing today no song of Nishat or Shalimar, no annealed song of waters

                engraving terraced gardens, no bower songs of bedded flowers;   

                        No soft songs flush or sweetly fresh, not green dew songs 

                                nor songs gentle and growing—

Not the least song.

I will not sing.

Not the least song—

Not today—not when here is no place 

        where the day’s white-seething pan of light is not set, poised 

                to shake, spilling from quavering vessels what life there was yet

                        to blight my garden—

        so the rose holds its breath;

the tulip its brand; quick rivers stall their song and keening koels shake 

        in their palpitating hearts, 

                where throbbing song is stilled—

                        all fearing,

a wild starling idly sinks into the quiet of its unsettled perch.  

I will not sing. Now 

warlord and bureaucrat stand

girt about, eyeing my Kashmir.

I will not sing—

        I will sing no song today of incipience, no late songs favoring the spring

                of first friends, the fevers willed, of new love and wildness in longing;

                        I will stage no song to effloresce red and yellow, with tender crests

                                 of the blue and green stuff growing—not the least song—

I will not sing.

        No such song. Not today. 

        spring is in flight. Autumn in pursuit, and the winds 

                are poison. In every forest one hears the heated rumor 

                        of fire—man undertakes to hunt man. 

Which is why the long hair of the narcissus is tangled;

                        the jasmine, wind torn, has fallen:

        wretched flower, mangled on the vine.

I will not sing. Now 

warlord and bureaucrat stand

girt about, eyeing my Kashmir.

I will not sing—

        No song of fields and seeded beds of rice, no labored song

                Of threshing floors and tillers in the field

                following the ox-led plough, no drenched song 

                        of sweating hours. No such song: 

Not when the weeds have choked the life out of the fields.

        When the threshed grain lies torn by locusts,

                when sweat on the head freezes in fear: 

A vortex forms around every boulder, even the grass 

withers, and withered, it is as if blood 

flows from roots.

        I will not sing. 

Now warlord and bureaucrat stand

girt about, eyeing my Kashmir.

I will not sing.

        I will sing no song 

                no song until the rising hills 

                and high circuit 

                of eminent mountains—

                until seeded field 

                and the earth where it lies

                fallow and watered—

                until bud and flower, 

                the red rice and white—

                        songbirds and their song;

                        autumn and spring; the forest 

                and garden; the flowing streams 

                and still water; jasmine, and rose,  

                royal gardens and fields of tulips, 

                the waterfalls and high places,

                narrow pass and caravan road,

                wide-crested Burzil Pass,

                Naked Mountain, and Mirror Lake, 

                and after, Vāvajan Pass,

                no song until I see them, free 

                from fear, and from siege, from terror.

To see them again

and in the faint light, at the joining 

of the two dusks, evening and nightfall,

        early

        early enough—in good time

to see my purposes prosper again

that my wishes are put back again 

into good order, to see my own—this darling child—

our garden, where we dwell; 

to see our home again: populous and free, 

        gratifying, like spring, 

fresh, as days we were young.

     — translated from the Kashmiri by Sonam Kachru