Some Destitute Living Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

Wov to the man's heart, who has seen,
Destitute living and yet those faces were glowing like lanterns.
So the damp weather was like the nearby canal watering sugarcane fields
The ants with wings were burning like moths on candle.
Nothing would explain the whole scene whiter dark or loud
This silence was so disturbing when the bride appeared as if older
By fifteen years and dressed in black having rugged hands of shiny green
Those slender hands were anticipating some harder work to do,

A little girl was rubbing herself to many mothers sitting there,
What warmth of father's lap would mean.
Years have been on the way out to some destination
And heavy mud might have eaten up the bones and flesh and skin.
What love is to everyone and would tears bring him one day,
Ah! Learn to live the loneliness of life
And would everyone love and see the depth of that soul.

The two women would tear each other apart.
And would a man be so destitute to avoid eating dinner at home.
The silence was rather killing everyone as the mother figure had left,
Such a strong ghost of femininity and controlling men's affairs.
The holy and the weak would come to pay homage,
No matter, what direction the holy woman was sitting.
Every woman and man was holy though, but when dinner was served,
The moths ran away for shelter and that whole place needed to be washed
And cleaned instantly. The man was distributing meat of the lamb and no one could,
Take his eyes away from the fingers that as if distributed luck or good fortune.

We did not hear the bride's cries and secrete sobbing and so was it arranged,
Without surprise and some spontaneous gesture.
Everyone danced. The walls were cold as leaves and the night was so shiny
With stars. The leaves greener than usual and the room that was made of
Hard stone was so normal, as if nothing was happening.

And nothing actually happened when everyone went home to gather
In the morning and take the bride away.

The gaping hole in the earth was so hollow,
So hollow as if hell was here and I wished the spirits would run away,
What remorse that I would search every bit of myself here and when,
Alas those men should not call me mad by any sense as I wanted to hit,
My head against a brick wall.

What nostalgia!

They had been eating mud with rice and bones of mother cow.
Two in number and a dozen lambs would not be suffice,
To bring luck to the family that feared famine like the Egypt of Joseph.

Not thorns and broken skin on my heals in my dream,
And still I see a happy omen.
Someone rub my soles and wash my feet with holy water,
As these walls sans life would crumble on me.
And again there is such a silence in the street, where I am busy finding
Roots and cultivating myself into stems and leaves.

The marriage was over with an indescribable phenomenon,
Everyone was happy and yet every soul did not know,
A bearded man told us in the end that the holy book was presented
To the bride. The ladies that looked so pretty last night looked so ugly
In the day. But they were still graceful.

We bought some vinegar on the way back and did not know whether vinegar
Is acid or base. Though my son said vinegar is base. I thought someday people
Will extract wine from the grapes here.
We also bought some cigars that women smoke in dance clubs abroad.
We also drank some water.
We were then going home.

The poem is published in Aquillrelle antholgy