AGONY
OF FLOWER
Translated by Shaik
Hussian
I. O lord to worship you to
my heart’s fill
I woke up with the cocks
crow-shill
Tucked with white cloth,
after a dip
Into the nearby garden I
went
To fetch flowers of Sacred
Scent.
II. when I stood nigh at a
flower plant
And bent its branch with a
little assault
To pluck a flower, then
all the flowers at once with a thousand voices
Pitifully protested and
cried “are you killing us”
My heart sank, there was a sudden flash in me
Which came out as a poem “Agony
of flower”.
III. We play in the lap of our
plant mother and beds of tender leaves,
Do you crush us and
mercilessly thrust us into the baskets?
And do you want to sell us
for your wealth of salvation?
What is the use of
worshipping god without meditation?
IV. You are an embodiment of
wisdom having reasoning power,
You can see things right;
we are only static
Has your heart changed
into stone?
Wouldn’t it flower some
flowers to worship God.
V. In our little span of lifetime
we glorify
Our mothers with charming
deeds and in their hands
We skip with freedom when
breath deserts us
We die with peace by
following the feet of our mothers.
VI. We perfume air with
fragrance
To butter-flies, that
relie on us, we offer honeyed banquet;
To the eyes that behold us
we open a glimmering scenery
We are independent, don’t
cut our stem with greed
Do you separate a child
from its mother?
VII. O! ye holy man how can you
attain salvation
By slaughtering others for
your soul comforts
Does a great soul receive
worship with bloody laceration?
If God Almighty wants, He
will take us
Why are you taking
middlemanship between God and us.
VIII. Our necks are tightened with
strings of thread
Our hearts are pierced
with needles sharp
To make garland to be
checked with charming care
Alas, How the unkindest
your women are
IX. Our unmoist hearts are
boiled in the hot oils
And our poor blood is
changed into scented fragrance
To be applied for perfumed
smells
To the dirty skins of your
high caste flocks.
X. The comfort sick villains
spread
our delicate bodies on all
sides of their beds
treading on us with their
dirty feet
The next morning we are
expelled in the dust
When we are found as faded
and withered
XI. Our priceless delicate,
sensitive perfume
And delicious life have
been reduced
And destroyed for thine,
you have stolen all our youth
Until we are rejected into
dust bins by your maid’s broom.
XII. You are born in the land of
Buddha, who preached love
Alas! What a shameful
thing for not possessing such love,
And you have become the
murderer who murders beauty
Making your human birth
unwholesome.
XIII. What about your virtue, that
offers
Worship to God by cutting
our necks
What great prosperity you
will get
By murdering us with your
hands.
XIV. Thus the flowers chide me
roughly
Now my hand cannot pluck a
flower
Oh God, now I have no way
out to approach thee,
With empty hands I come to
implore thee.