An Iceland Poem by Muhammad Shanazar

A piece of the sky
Under which is a small piece of land,
Where exists a tiny house,
Which is mine,
And it remained of us all!

At summer night beneath the branches of peepal tree,
When we sat on the cot
With extended feet
And searched for the abodes of Mars and Mercury,
In the sapphires studded starry sky,
My mother narrated a tale of an iceland
Whereupon a battered boat of a sailor
Trapped in the cyclone drifted to margin,
And on that day the sailor was lonesome on the Iceland surrounded by waters,
All around were ceaseless expanses of the deep saddened sea,
Only wrathful winds swished,
There were the sea and silences with no sign of humanity.

There had been times,
When your eyes bore the signs of impatience for my return,
And you received me on the threshold before hearing the soft sound of steps,
And wiped streaks of sweat from my forehead,
With your orange coloured anchal,
Pleasing smell of curtains made of sedge still wafts around the gloomy doors.

Clinging to me at wintry nights,
You gifted me a sense of pleasing sunlight,
You entrusted dreams to my eyes of delicate butterflies
Who on the cadence of breaking angraies
Summoned me caressing my lashes.
From the interior of my castle of dreams,
Even today I listen to the silvery chinks of your voice singing the folk tale of Heer.

But now
There is no aroma of steam hovering over the cup of tea,
Nor appetizing odour of fried garlic
I do not know
Why there is no insistence to eat one loaf more.

Pretty butterflies of my dreams grew young and flew away,
Winds smashing against doors are shattering to pieces,
And the chinks of your silvery voice
Are latent asleep in the street behind.

Where are
Those rooms bathing in the shine of smiles,
Roaming laughter in the house,
Musical beats of joy,
The birds of longings,
Glowworms of passions,
All have hidden themselves behind
The extended bushes in the valley of life.

Life now roams around the screen of TV
Like the serial of nine o’clock,
Now the grey sheet of cold bed does not get any crease.

I feel myself like a lonesome sailor of that tale,
Lying forlorn on the iceland where nothing is around,
But deep waters of the sea,
And there sleeps a lonely Sky
Over the top-tassels of the coconut tree,
The wind has halted Her movements,
And I alone on the plain of iceland
Feel as if I myself have become iceland itself.