Tell them come take my eyes / Before my body gives out
I shudder at this sorry sight
How many are like this
jealous of vision
In whose portion will be no riches of witness
Whose fate is to see no celebration nor celebrant
Who thirst to see the rays stream down
Who say it isn’t the alighting
look to the road
Tell them come take my eyes
Before my body gives out
Before this soul of dust is also gone
Before some great calamity befalls
Save my eyes from becoming a notion
Put my eyes in their faces
Who will be able to bear though
the ruin my eyes have seen
Who will be so brave
keep their eyes always open
Even as chimeras roll down
the branches of their lashes
Even as shrapnel twists
and encamps in the breath
Even as life cries out
for the rest of life
by Ahmad Faraz,
from Guernica Magazine
June 6, 2018
translated from Urdu by Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb