Omer Tarin

  when in summer brittle leaves fall softly to the ground they are no less beautiful;   when sunlight plays upon the laughing currents of the joyful breeze life laughs with them;   when alone in this idyllic meadow I beg for the comfort of dear ones, solitude is my sole companion;   when all else is done, and night's fluttering veil covers the blue-creased sky, the birds fly home.  ---- ------ ------- ------------ --------------- * From Burnt Offerings 1996       

  The saplings are reflected, shimmering in the pool, the calm shallows rippling;  A little white bird flies suddenly, spectral.  In this calm and lonely park, in this quiet coppice, the marble tablet glows with that long roll of names; your name is on it, too, dear uncle Sikandar, along with the rest of that gallant band from two great wars.   So what praise or eulogy can I offer you all? What plaudits may I sing? That are nobler than your deeds, that outshine or outlive your ultimate sacrifice,  that brought you marching to those foreign shores, so far from your homes?   By your ancestral hearths you are not forgotten – some sing of you in the verses of Khushal Khan, some in the ballads of Mirza and Dullah’s strains, rising up to the glistening stars on glorious wings;  In our hearts you are alive forever and in our children’s hearts and in the rushing swiftness of the rills that plunge down from the snowy hills.   Yet, there a...