A Poem was quite Easy Earlier

A translation of Nida Fazli's Poem 'Nazm Bahut Aasaan Thi Pehle'

A poem was quite easy earlier.

In front of the house

While tittuping over the branches of Peepal

Coming and going out from children’s bags

Fusing into the chirping of the birds

When a poem used to come to my house,

It used to write itself complete

Swiftly with my pen.

Everything has changed now.

From the narrow crossroads

Broad routes have erupted out.

New markets have gulped down

Old lanes and mohallas.

Between me and the poem

is a distance of miles.

And in between these miles

Somewhere suddenly

A bomb explodes.

Sleeping babies are slayed

inside the wombs of their mothers.

Religion and Politics both

Prattle new slogans.

From many cities

Innumerable countries

Whenever a poem walks into my house

It gets so tired that

It leaves the pages on my writing table

completely blank,

then resigns for the footpath

And sleeps in the eyes

Of the city’s oldest person

Like tears.