In memory of Agha Shahid Ali

Shahid, a witness of chaos and mayhem
There is no respite, O’ beloved!
The choking airs still chant ‘A butcher! A butcher!’
On way to conquer ‘Half inch Himalayas’.

Each ‘postcard from Kashmir’ vows
For ‘return to harmony’
And it is smeared at ‘Srinagar airport’,
Its ‘blood shines’ even after the ‘black snowfall’.

Dear Shahid!
In your ‘country without a post office’
We beg from pillar to post, for one;
They taunt us of ‘Majnoon weeping for satan’,
‘Who now weeps’ in the aghast land
‘The dead are here’! The dead are there!

Each daughter of this ‘city of daughters’
Is a ‘Zainab lamenting in Damascus’.
‘Karbala: A house of sorrow’ is our Srinagar!

Dear Shahid!
‘The floating post office’ is no more
And ‘the keeper of dead hotel?’
We mourn day in and day out,
‘In the grief of broken stone’
Every fortnight is ‘Muharram in Srinagar’!

We never say goodnight
But ‘call me Ishmael tonight’
Was it the same ‘O’Beloved!