Sibghatullah Khan

As I sit reading in my room, I hear
the first Spring rain thumping the Earth.
Since I cannot concentrate, I rush
out on my roofed terrace and see
...

If I make it,
I'll lose my innocence,
and for my blessed life embrace
that haughty, enlightened ignorance.
...

They had sweated to excel,
and work their way uphill;
some had finally made it
and whatever they had to, paid it.
...

Hello!
This is Pakistan speaking.
I just called to let you know
that I'm very sick these days,
...

No one can call my name
like that
And fill my whole being
with love,
...

If seven o'clock is present,
twelve is future;
both run into the sunset
to make it past.
...

Love plays its miracles;
it can do all kinds of things:
When you are sick and sad,
it lifts you up from the blues and sings
...

...

Death sounds like silence,
like the falling of Autumn leaves,
a sad, broken heart when it heaves,
like someone walking in a deserted street,
...

Saying the same over and over makes no sense
unless it does not mean the same.
But how can you say something
when words are so rude? : they refuse
...

My Sweet little brother,
how I love to see you run around the house,
the park, the playground, and be the light
of my eyes! Here I am, your sister,
...

When my car broke down on the road,
he was sitting in the bucket seat, my little boy.
Almost five, he got edgy and said: "Why cars go phut? "
"It's the road, child, " I casually explained.
...

Since I'm past the time when it is hard to think
that, somewhere, Death might have laid his snares,
I keep telling myself over and over, as I drink
deep on life, that I might be caught unawares.
...

My physician had suggested walk among the hills;
and it's there I think I saw some daffodils.
I saw them blossom in an early morning haze,
hidden from all untutored human gaze.
...

'Dear Lamb, I'm so sorry for my great grandfather
who, in a rush of some indiscreet passion,
killed yours on the bank of this beautiful stream,
In cold blood—rather unbecoming fashion.
...

He gave her a narcissuss,
when Woolf went to see Freud.
Already, she had told those tales
and, in between, had cried.
...

When we entered that house five years back,
It was a 'clean, well-lighted place':
white enameled walls, a cozy fireplace, and a kitchen
fitted out with a range, gas stove, and white wooden cabinets.
...

It was very safe but an unlikely place:
pretty warm and temperate like an incubator.
The little sparrow, a non-conformist,
went off track with an unconventional air,
...

Both of us were working,
Dead serious- -I was reading
And he was out to find something to eat.
As my dark brown golden-hands clock ticked away,
...

As I went sorting myself out, I met them all,
black-robed and grave, with purple on display at stalls:
they would push me on with hope on their brows,
light my way forward with words, their hands and eyes
...