{"id":3240,"date":"2022-02-03T11:41:57","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T19:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=3240"},"modified":"2024-12-11T12:00:18","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T20:00:18","slug":"homage-to-faiz-ahmed-faiz-by-agha-shahid-ali","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/homage-to-faiz-ahmed-faiz-by-agha-shahid-ali\/","title":{"rendered":"Homage to Faiz Ahmed Faiz by Agha Shahid Ali"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"issue16\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Found in\u00a0Willow Springs 16<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Author Profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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Homage to Faiz Ahmed Faiz by Agha Shahid Ali<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Homage to Faiz Ahmed Faiz (d. 20 November 1984)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\n“You are welcome to make your
\nadaptations of my poems.”\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You wrote this from Beirut, two years before
the Sabra-Shatila massacres. That
city’s refugee-air was open, torn
by jets and the voices of reporters. As
always you were witness to “rains of stones,”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nthough you were away from Pakistan, from
\nthe laws of home which said that the hands of
\nthieves would be surgically amputated.
\nBut the subcontinent always spoke to
\nyou: in Ghalib’s Urdu, and sometimes through\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nthe old masters who sang of twilight but
\ndidn’t live, like Ghalib, to see the wind
\nrip the collars of the dawn: the summer
\nof 1857, the trees of
\nDelhi became scaffolds: 30,000\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nmen were hanged. Wherever you were, Faiz, that
\nlanguage spoke to you; and when you heard it,
\nyou were alone-in Tunis, Beirut,
\nLondon, or Moscow. Those poets’ laments
\nconcealed, as yours revealed, the sorrows of\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \na broken time. You knew Ghalib was right:
\nblood musn’t merely follow routine, musn’t
\njust flow as the veins’ uninterrupted
\nriver. Sometimes it must flood the eyes,
\nsurprise them by being clear as water.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

\nI didn’t listen when my father
\nrecited your poems to us by
\nheart. What could it mean to a boy\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nthat you had redefined the cruel
\nbeloved, that figure who already
\nwas Friend, Woman, God? In your hands\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nshe was Revolution. You gave
\nher silver hands, her lips were red.
\nImpoverished lovers waited all\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nnight every night, but she
\nremained only a glimpse behind
\nlight. When I learned of her I was\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nno longer a boy, and Urdu
\na silhouette traced by
\nthe voices of singers, by\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nBegum Akhtar who wove your couplets
\ninto ragas: both language and music
\nwere sharpened. I listened:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nand you became, like memory,
\nnecessary. Dast-e-Saba,
\nI said to myself. And quietly\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nthe wind opened its palms: I read
\nthere of the night: the secrets
\nof lovers, the secrets of prisons.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3 <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When you permitted my hands to
turn to stone, as must happen to a translator’s<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nhands, I thought of you writing Zindan-Nama
\non prison-walls, on cigarette-packages,\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \non torn envelopes. Your lines were measured
\nso carefully to become in our veins\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nthe blood of prisoners. In the free verse
\nof another language I imprisoned\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \neach line-but I touched my own exile.
\nThis hush, while your ghazals lay in my palms,\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nwas accurate, as is this hush which falls
\nat news of your death over Pakistan\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nand India and over all of us no
\nlonger there to whom you spoke in Urdu.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nTwenty days before your death you finally
\nwrote, this time from Lahore, that after the sack\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nof Beirut you had no address… I
\nhad gone from poem to poem, and found\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nyou once terribly alone, speaking
\nto yourself: “Bolt your doors, Sad heart! Put out\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nthe candles, break all cups of wine. No one,
\nnow no one will ever return.” But you\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nstill waited, Faiz, for that God, that Woman,
\nthat Friend, that Revolution, to come at\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nlast. And because you waited, I
\nlisten as you pass with some song,\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A memory of musk, the rebel face of hope.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":25234,"featured_media":987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3240"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37576,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240\/revisions\/37576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}