Tell Me Lumberjack What Will You Sell Now? Poem by Naseer Ahmed Nasir

Tell me Lumberjack what will you sell now?
Now that the jungles have turned into towns,
And pipes have been laid down in every street.
In the maze of walls and roads,
Civility and good manners,
Have turned into fables of abandoned societies.
Sellers and buyers,
Have all rolled into one.
In search of fame and excitement of consumption,
And her hunger for limitless praise,
Even the beauty un-adorned,
Had to fall back on rouge and self advancement.
That which did not exist yesterday,
Is rampant today.

Say what you will Lumberjack!
But how shall you pass the days of inactivity?
Which trees will you fell?
Exhausted and bone-weary, will you squat under your own shadow?
All the limbs and branches that you had cut and accumulated,
And the fame and fortune that you had earned in this line of work,
How long will they sustain you?
Where and when will you sow your share of trees?
Look brother!
Sitting on your hands and dawdling,
You will die of hunger.

(Translated from Urdu into English by Mashhood Elahi Khan)