TRANSLATED FROM URDU BY RIZWAN AKHTAR

for twenty years the trees stood on the edge of a singing canal
they were like spruced sentinels as if guarding some borders
dense, comforting, sprinkling shadows with spored canopies,
twenty thousand rupees was the deal all green trees were sold,
every time they inhaled each whiff had a strange magic,
murderous axes tore them like warriors’ bodies are hacked,
in no time this blue wall of dying trees crashed on the ground
chopped torsos collapsing skeletons spilling fruits and leaves
paled piles of dead bodies wrapped in a straightening sunlight,
today standing on the brink of this crooning canal I contemplate
that in this slaughterhouse only my imagination is thriving like
a bough, so better it would Adam’s sons strike hard on me too.

Also read, Poems by Max Alhau, translated from French by Patrick Williamson, and published by the The Antonym.

Poems — Max Alhau

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