Classic Poem

Captives
Arise
rise and chip the mountains
mountains of deed traditions
mountains of blind beliefs
mountains of cruel hatreds
In the prisons of our bodies
countless restless bodies
and- grieving souls sob
they wander round form stairway to stairway
asking when we shall free them?
Our existence is for the future generations
we owe them,
those who will come into being, through us
come into existence
The severed head which gives birth to thousands of beads
is no longer just a story.
The thing which is throbbing in the blood,
which is whining,
thousands of eyes from the veins of the body, peering restless eyes
are saying this:
Captives
These, who sleep in a house,
of yellow stone
wrapped
in sheets of insensitivity
tell them
to rise
and chip the mountains
We have to think of liberation.

[Translated by Rukhsana Ahmad]