Agony of Flower

Translated by Shaik Hussian

I.          O lord to worship you to my heart’s fill
I woke up with the cocks crow-shill
Tucked with white cloth, after a dip
Into the nearby garden I went
To fetch flowers of Sacred Scent.

II.         when I stood nigh at a flower plant
And bent its branch with a little assault
To pluck a flower, then all the flowers at once with a thousand voices
Pitifully protested and cried “are you killing us”
My heart sank, there was a sudden flash in me
Which came out as a poem “Agony of flower”.

III.       We play in the lap of our plant mother and beds of tender leaves,
Do you crush us and mercilessly thrust us into the baskets?
And do you want to sell us for your wealth of salvation?
What is the use of worshipping god without meditation?

IV.       You are an embodiment of wisdom having reasoning power,
You can see things right; we are only static
Has your heart changed into stone?
Wouldn’t it flower some flowers to worship God.

V.        In our little span of lifetime we glorify
Our mothers with charming deeds and in their hands
We skip with freedom when breath deserts us
We die with peace by following the feet of our mothers.

VI.       We perfume air with fragrance
To butter-flies, that relie on us, we offer honeyed banquet;
To the eyes that behold us we open a glimmering scenery
We are independent, don’t cut our stem with greed
Do you separate a child from its mother?

VII.      O! ye holy man how can you attain salvation
By slaughtering others for your soul comforts
Does a great soul receive worship with bloody laceration?
If God Almighty wants, He will take us
Why are you taking middlemanship between God and us.

VIII.     Our necks are tightened with strings of thread
Our hearts are pierced with needles sharp
To make garland to be checked with charming care
Alas, How the unkindest your women are

IX.       Our unmoist hearts are boiled in the hot oils
And our poor blood is changed into scented fragrance
To be applied for perfumed smells
To the dirty skins of your high caste flocks.

X.        The comfort sick villains spread
our delicate bodies on all sides of their beds
treading on us with their dirty feet
The next morning we are expelled in the dust
When we are found as faded and withered

XI.       Our priceless delicate, sensitive perfume
And delicious life have been reduced
And destroyed for thine, you have stolen all our youth
Until we are rejected into dust bins by your maid’s broom.

XII.      You are born in the land of Buddha, who preached love
Alas! What a shameful thing for not possessing such love,
And you have become the murderer who murders beauty
Making your human birth unwholesome.

XIII.     What about your virtue, that offers
Worship to God by cutting our necks
What great prosperity you will get
By murdering us with your hands.

XIV.    Thus the flowers chide me roughly
Now my hand cannot pluck a flower
Oh God, now I have no way out to approach thee,
With empty hands I come to implore thee.