Protest: A Poem

 

By: Rubina Abro

(Translated from Sindhi to English)

Birds don’t have

Any religion,

Nor do they have

Any sect,

In which they

Are trapped?

Even their names

Are craved on their wings,

By humans for their own convenience

Don’t know

Whether birds are aware

Of their names

Or not!

But birds do know

How to safeguard the nest

How to hide fledgling

Under wings

And how to protest,

When a fledgling doesn’t return back home

At evening

How to woe in trees?

Never seen a bird

Stealing another bird’s fledgling

Never has a bird stabbed

a mother’s heart with (knife of) separation!

Let’s ask all the birds

(Oh!) Thee dwellers of sky

How come humans dwelling the earth

Have remained so backward from thee?

Flap thee together when,

The tree leaves shiver

And the heavens turn into

Lamenting cry

And then every bird returns

To its nest safely

But,

When would our Priya Kumari

Return to her nest?

Why is she still

Imprisoned in the gloomy forest

Where she even doesn’t know

Whether humans are beasts

Or beasts are humans!

And why are the birds so kindhearted?

Come let’s plead birds

To protest for Priya Kumari.