What is it that will sift a flower—
and what flowers!—that will boldly drink
of spring from the garden’s year, and does not know?
For here is riot, and fury of sound, quite agony enough.
What if you were not told?
Yours is the horse-hair net
and florid bait, and the sprung-snares of luminous stuff made:
Here flowers conceal the flush green nets set with blades of spun-grass.
Here is downfall;
your ruin in fire,
should you nestle among boughs where there are flowers
high on the flowering tree—now it is past time
you left the garden; now that you persist, and would disavow this—
For we here bless with more life only trees
that keep, and do not beg
their share of shade; we lay waste
to the tree bereft, be it the proudest of tall pines.
their share of shade; we lay waste
to the tree bereft, be it the proudest of tall pines.
--Ghulam Ahmad Mahjoor (1885-1952)
(Adapted from the Kashmiri poem, Bulbulo Mot Gokh Poshan, by Sonam Kachru, September, 2011*)
The songbird (bulbul) has figured before this in the poetry of Mahjoor, and was to continue to effect him in his work beyond the forms and metaphoric registers he inherited from Persian. He could not resist speaking to the bird, even in a poem otherwise addressing the Gardener: karee kus bulbulaa aazaad panjaras manz tsu naalan chukh / tsu pananye dasta pananyan mushkilan aasaan paadaa kar. I hope to have occasion to say more soon concerning the songbird as it figures as muse, deceiver and creature of extravagant invention and by turns naive servitude to idyll thoughts in a burning garden. In that note I will explain my preference of "songbird" over "nightingale" or even retaining bulbul in transliteration. In the meantime, one might amuse oneself with the erudition on display here
*The poem has been translated before. See in particular 'Fussy Bird' by Trilokinath Raina, available in his collection of poems by Mahjoor, The Best of Mahjoor, J & K Academy of Art, Culture and Languages, Srinagar, 1989.
