KINGFISHER by Daud Kamal

 

Daud Kamal: 

    Daud Kamal (1935-1987), Pakistan’s most accomplished poet, taught English literature at Peshawar University for nearly three decades. His poems, which are in English, convey a sense of loss and spiritual displacement in the face of violence and cultural erasure. Kamal’s first book, Reverberations (1970), consists of translations of the classical Urdu poet, Ghalib. His original poems in English appeared in Recognitions (1979), A Remote Beginning (1985), and in such posthumous volumes as Rivermist (1992), Before The Carnations Wither (1995) and A Selection of Verse (1997). Kamal’s translations of the Urdu poets Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ahmed Nadeem Qasimi, Munir Niazi and Ahmed Faraz appeared in Four contemporary poets (1992).

KINGFISHER

April

is the kingfisher’s beak

which pierces

the river’s glad torment.

Is this an image 

of our love?

Carnage

in the rose-valleys

under the first light 

of our wounds.

Clouds

detach themselves

from disconsolate trees.

The future

curves on another shore.

Tongues of water

cradle our startled dreams.

Moss-grown stepping-stones.

The stars burn fiercely.

They tell us what we are.

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