Before you came by Faiz Ahmad Faiz

(Translated fromUrdu by: Agha Shahid Ali)
Song from 99.9 FM
Singer: Zia Mohyeddin

Before you came,
things were as they should be:
the sky was the dead-end of sight,
the road was just a road, wine merely wine.

Now everything is like my heart,
a color at the edge of blood:
the grey of your absence, the color of poison, of thorns,
the gold when we meet, the season ablaze,
the yellow of autumn, the red of flowers, of flames,
and the black when you cover the earth
with the coal of dead fires.

And the sky, the road, the glass of wine?
The sky is a shirt wet with tears,
the road a vein about to break,
and the glass of wine a mirror in which
the sky, the road, the world keep changing.

Don't leave now that you're here—
Stay. So the world may become like itself again:
so the sky may be the sky,
the road a road,
and the glass of wine not a mirror, just a glass of wine.

Courtesy: Poets.org

Familiar Part -1

After leaving Geeta at the school she had to return to work, by noon she would have to go to her second job at the village mill. She stood near the gate, looking over the fence to see her young daughter running to the rope swings.
The fence was made of thorn branches cluttered in bunches that swung against the winds in fierce defiant jolts. The red earth of the play ground rose up in gusts and she squinted to see clearly.
As she walked away she looked back once again at the red tiled building, its squat structure was standing uncomfortably in the background of the greenery. The voices of the workers rose higher as she approached the broad tamarind tree under which they gathered to be instructed about the day’s work. She sat absently in a corner, not wanting to speak.
“You should rest your legs, the accident was so recent.”
Her worried friend Kamala walked up to her.
Money was not enough, the house was mortgaged twice. Work was scarce. But it wouldn’t help to discuss all this. Instead they proceeded to gossip about the new daughter-in-law in Pattammal’s house.
Then the rain started pouring, steadily drizzling at first and then, beating hard against the strong coconut branches. She could hear the hustle but she was running in another direction. Her clothes were damp, legs covered in sludge and face dripping with water when she reached the school. The roof was leaking, and the girls were hovering in corners, covering their slates with the edges of their skirts.
She carried Geeta out of the shelter with her thin cotton saree wrapped arouand her head. Her limbs were cold against her stomach.