میز پر رکھے ھاتھ
میز پر رکھے ھاتھ
ھاتھوں کو میزپر سے اٹھاتی ھوں
پھر بھی پڑے رھتے ھیں
میز پر
اور ھنستے ھیں
میز پر رکھے اپنے ھی دو ھاتھوں کو
ھاتھوں سے اٹھانا مشکل لگتا ھے
میں ھاتھوں کو دانتوں سے
اٹھاتی ھوں
پر ھاتھ نھیں اٹھتے
میز پر رہ جاتے ھیں
دانتوں کے نشانوں سے بھرے ھوۓ
ساکت اور گھورتے ھوۓ
میں بھی ھاتھوں کو گھورتی ھوں
میز کا رنگ اانکھوں میں بھر جاتا ھے
میں آنکھیں بند کر لیتی ھوں
سو جاتی ھوں
میز پر رکھے ھوۓ ھاتھوں پر
سر رکھ کر
Azra Abbas is an Urdu poet of Pakistan who writes modern poetry in Urdu with a style known as prose poem.She has contributed five books till now and each poetry collection shows how fast her thought process matures and the style though simple acquires more sophistication.She started her journey some twenty six years back in 1988 with a collection named نیند کی مسافتیں The Fathomed Sleep .
The above poem میز پر رکھے ھاتھ My hands on the table shows the modernity of thought at its best. As she is amazingly conscious of the body and its relationship to feelings, inner emotions and the relationship these body parts have to the objects around us, she expresses the innate inability of the body to lift itself unless the person herself does not intend to do the act. This poem describes the ultra modernity of thought that the poet has made her hallmark. Azra can stand proud in the international poetry seen as any great artist who has mastery of the craft. Like Sylvia Plath and Gabriela Mistral she flaunts her individualistic style.Says she
My hands on the table
I lift them up
Yet they lie
Motionless on the table
And laugh at me
Lying on the table
My hands
I find them difficult to lift
I try in vain
To lift with my teeth
These hands
Yet they lie
On the table
Full of marks of my teeth
Still and staring
I stare at them
The color of the table fills my eyes
I close my eyes
And sleep
Putting my head on my hands
My hands on the table.
This poem reminds me of a painting by Picasso "Endormie", only in the painting the subject is happy and in Azra's poem the subject shows a deep inability to do what one wants. It is this inherent conflict of resolution to do something and inability to execute the task or fulfill the desire with almost in a violent manner which shows the deep anguish of the poet's soul and her inability to execute it in a manner that she dreams about. In the end falling off to sleep reflects her reaching a compromise yet starting a new dream.
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| Picasso Endormie. |
At the age of twenty three she wrote and published her first poem which became extremely popular."The Feet That Walked On Water"
پانی پہ چلتے ھوے پاؤں ھمارے ھی تھے
سرسراتے ھوے لباساور ان کو چھولینے کی خواھش میں تم
ھمارے گُلابی رنگ کیا تمھاری انگلیوں کی پورون سے لگے ھین
تمھیں پتہ نھین
تتلیاں انھیں رنگوں کو تو ڈھونڈ رھی ھیں
تم انھیں مت چھونا
وہ ھمارے گُلابی رنگ لے کر اڑ جایں گی
اور پانیوں پہ چلتے ھوے پاوں دیکھیں گے
وہ شاید ھمارے ھی ھوں گے
مگر ھم تو جب اپنی ماوں کے زانوں سے لگے کپڑے سی رھے ھوں گے
اور باورچی خانوں سے مصالوں کی خوشبو اٹھ رھی ھو گی
کیا یہ سچ ھے
اگلے دنوں میں سُورج کے پیچھے جلتے ھمارے بدن اپنے گُناھوں کا حساب دیں گے
اور پرندے ھماری آنکھیں اپنے پروں مین چھپا کر اڑ جایں گے
یہ سچ ھے
ھمارے ھاتھوں میں ابھی محبت سے وزنی لفظوں کی خوشبو ھے
ھم راتوں کو اپنے بستروں سے اٹھ جاتے ھیں
جب ھاتھوں میں پڑی ھوی چوڑیاں بجنے لگتی ھیں
اور بازووں سے نیچے دور تک پھیلی ھوی مدھم خوشبو
ھم کھاں چلے جاتے ھیں
اندھیرے مین پیچھا کرتی ھوی روشنیان
ھم کیوں کُھلے پانیوں پہ چلنے کی خواھش مین اپنی دھلیزوں پہ ھین
ھمارے خواب ھم سے دور کھاں جشن منا رھے ھیں
شام کا پھلا دن ھم سے کیوں جُدا ھو گیا
The feet that walked the water were ours
Those undulating dresses and how you hoped to touch them
Do our pink colors touch your fingers
You know not
The butterflies are in their quest
Those colors
Do not touch them
They will fly away with our colors
And the feet that tread the water will see
That they are ours
And the kitchen aroma will be full of spices
Is this true
That the Sun will scorch our bodies and we pay for our sins
And the birds will fly away with our eyes hidden beneath their feathers
It is true
That our hands bear the heady smell of the words
We get up from our beds at nights
When our bangles jingle
And the sweet smell on our arms spreads
We are in another world
Light chasing darkness
Why are we inside our doors while we desire to tread the waters
Our dreams are celebrating far away
Why has the first day of the evening gone!
This beautiful poem from one of the earliest collections shows that Azra Abbas expresses her feelings and desires as a recollection of acts performed by girls at night while lying in bed, dreaming. The young girl imagining her desires in the paradigm of her daily existence with smells of kitchen spices, jingling bangles in the night in the heat of the act of pleasure, self discovery.The sweet heady smell that becomes so visible at the time of self discovery and realization of the body.That it is another world where pleasure is paramount both as a thought and an act.She uses metaphors such as the butterflies snatching away the colors. She uses the Sun's heat burning the bodies as a cost for the sins committed by the body. Here a sense of guilt that is inculcated in the act of self pleasure by the society is seen.Yet she heralds the dreams as hopes.
Azra's poetry matures in both diction, form and craftv and later she expresses this as
محبت پھلے جسم کو نھیں چھوتی
مھبت دل سے دل کی طرف
جاتی ھے
میں تم تک ایسے ھی پھنچی تھی
آج میں تنھا ھوں
تمھاری محبت اب صرف
میرے جسم کو چھوتی ھے
میری مھبت تمھارے دل کو ٹٹولتی ھے
جو خالی ھے
میں تمھیں تنھا نھیں ھونے دوں گی
خالی دل سے جب جسم چھوا جاتا ھے
تنھاٰی دور سے نظر آتی ھے
Love does touch the body first
Love comes to the heart from one heart
That is how I reached you
Today I am alone
Your love touches
Only my body now
My love searches your heart
Which is empty
I will not leave you alone
If one touches the empty heart
With the body
Loneliness stands apparent.
This beautiful poem expresses the place where two lovers reach after years spend together. She reflects how the passion of the bodies is intermingled with the expression of love. When young a woman almost always feels love for the man and as time goes by this love seems to whither away as passion becomes less intense. The poet describes the interaction between the bodies as an expression of love and how it seems to lessen with time but she hopes that she will overcome this by not letting her partner alone.
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| Poet Azra Abbas presenting her poetry at Halqa Arbab Zauq Karachi. |
