Reflection [Translated In English by Suman K. Sharma]

Original Dogri poetry is available here

My own mirror perhaps

Finds me a stranger still –

Lost for centuries as I am

In the quest of self.

These my eyes await

A closer look at me –

I haven’t yet assembled

My disarrayed me, may be.

My eyes haven’t yet melted

With my bosom’s warmth;

And there’s time yet to read

The frowns of deep anguish.

Void yet is my heart

Of the ecstasy of pain;

I am far away still

From my home unknown.

My path-way lies still asleep

And the home is yet to awake

Neither has the next mark inched

Nor have I taken a step ahead.

How can I then rate the wings

Of my soaring desires –

I have yet to size up

The shadow I cast on earth.

I haven’t yet capped

My heady desires, and

Perched on a support still

Remains my vaulting ambition.

I have to reckon still

The wherewithal of construction –

Yet to be built

Is the dream of my mansion.

The blank pages of my brain

I am still turning over;

From the sowing of my thoughts

My songs of mind are yet to flower

Of the she’rs and ghazals

I have yet to get a feel

In the lap of Mother of Muse

I am but gathering mere words.

Open, O Begana, open a wee bit

The Book of Happenstances, for me

To inscribe the unfulfilled ambitions

Of my unstoppable pen  in it.

For I ‘ve yet to erase

The Imperative of Death

And to imprint on it

The Initials of Life instead.