Tears of Jhelum

 

(My poem that I composed when Kashmir was flooded)

O my sons of soil and daughters!
I nursed you with my nectar
But what you gave me back
Loads of your filth and squalor.

I watered your fields and orchards
Bedewing lips quenched your thirst
But you robbed of glorious flow
And forced my flow backwards.

I bore all follies of yours with smile
But gave no thought to my health
Ravaged my green gorgeous guards
Filled your coffers with wealth and pelf.

Flanks were narrowed I kept quiet
My body was squeezed I cried,
You choked my throat and nose
I lamented, sobbed, wept and sighed.

But no one was there to listen me
I waited for decades with hopes
My kids will come to their senses
Restore me of my breathing space.

Alas! I couldn’t bear, sustain no more
Hurts, cuts, tortures of my kids
My eyes started shedding tears
Bringing the deluge and vast floods.

Now it was your turn to weep and cry
But I was not happy at your woes,
Kept shedding my tears like a mother
Seeing her kids in pains and throes.

When I saw your suffering increasing
I had to choke my throat and shut eyes
To stop further furies that deluges
To soothe and stop my grand-kids cries.