सरहद के मरहम / अंजना टंडन

कितने उलझे है सभी
आपाधापी में,

जबकि
इस समय
लिखी जानी चाहिए थीं
दुनिया की
तरलतम प्रेम कविताएँ,

ख़तों के मजमून सी

जिन्हें
प्रेमिकाएँ भेज सकें
गीले बोसे में लपेट,

इस बुरे दौर में यकीनन
ये ही मरहम मानिंद हैं,

सरहद पर इन दिनों जख़्म बहुत है।

On Liberty and Slavery / George Moses Horton

Alas! and am I born for this,
To wear this slavish chain?
Deprived of all created bliss,
Through hardship, toil and pain!


How long have I in bondage lain,
And languished to be free!
Alas! and must I still complain--
Deprived of liberty.


Oh, Heaven! and is there no relief
This side the silent grave--
To soothe the pain--to quell the grief
And anguish of a slave?


Come Liberty, thou cheerful sound,
Roll through my ravished ears!
Come, let my grief in joys be drowned,
And drive away my fears.


Say unto foul oppression, Cease:
Ye tyrants rage no more,
And let the joyful trump of peace,
Now bid the vassal soar.


Soar on the pinions of that dove
Which long has cooed for thee,
And breathed her notes from Afric's grove,
The sound of Liberty.


Oh, Liberty! thou golden prize,
So often sought by blood--
We crave thy sacred sun to rise,
The gift of nature's God:


Bid Slavery hide her haggard face,
And barbarism fly:
I scorn to see the sad disgrace
In which enslaved I lie.


Dear Liberty! upon thy breast,
I languish to respire;
And like the Swan unto her nest,
I'd to thy smiles retire.


Oh, blest asylum--heavenly balm!
Unto thy boughs I flee--
And in thy shades the storm shall calm,
With songs of Liberty!

Be Kind When You Can / Eliza Cook

Be kind when you can, though the kindness be little,
'Tis small letters make up philosophers' scrolls;
The crystal of Happiness, vivid and brittle,
Can seldom be cut into very large bowls.

'Tis atoms that dwell in the measureless mountain,
'Tis moments that sum up the century's flight;
'Tis but drops that unite in Niagara's fountain,
'Tis rays, single rays, from the harvest-sun light.

Stone by stone builds the temple that rises in glory,
Inch by inch grows the child till maturity's prime;
The jewels so famous in bright, Eastern story
Have been nursed, tint by tint, in the blossom of Time.

'Tis grains make the desert-sheet, trackless and spreading;
'Tis but petals that deck every blossom-twinned spray;
There are leaves - only leaves - where the forest is shedding
Its gloom till the density shuts out the day.

A word or a glance which we give 'without thinking',
May shadow or lighten some sensitive breast;
And the draught from the well-spring is wine in the drinking,
If quaffed from the brim that Affection has blest.

Then be kind when you can in the smallest of duties,
Don't wait for the larger expressions of Love;
For the heart depends less for its joys and its beauties
On the flight of the Eagle than coo of the Dove.

आँखों की सड़क / अनीता कपूर

मेरी आँखों की सड़क पर
जब तुम चलकर आते थे
कोलतार मखमली गलीचा बन जाता था
मेरी आँखों की सड़क से जब
तुम्हें वापस जाते देखती थी
वही सड़क रेगिस्तान बन जाती थी
तुम फिर जब-जब वापस नहीं आते थे
रेगिस्तान की रेत आँख की किरकिरी बन जाती थी
आँखों ने सपनों से रिश्ता तोड़ लिया था
फिर मुझे नींद नहीं आती थी

Poet's Song / Karle Wilson Baker

Dropp’d feather from the wings of God
My little songs and snatches are,
So light He does not hear them fall
As He goes by, from star to star.
Dropp’d feathers from the wings of God
I find, and braid them in my hair;
Men heed them not--they only make
My soul unto herself more fair.

यमुना तट पर छठ / संजय कुंदन

इस नदी की साँसें लौट आई हैं
इसकी त्वचा मटमैली है
मगर पारदर्शी है इसका हृदय
इसकी आँखों में कम नहीं हुआ है पानी

घुटने भर मिलेगा हर किसी को पानी
लेकिन पूरा मिलेगा आकाश
छठव्रतियों को

परदेश में छठ करते हुए
मन थोड़ा भारी हो रहा है
महिलाओं का

दिल्ली में बहुत दूर लगती है नदी
सिर्फ़ गन्ने के लिए
या सिंघाड़े के लिए
लंबा सफ़र तय करना पड़ता है

अपना घर होता
तो दरवाज़े तक पहुँचा जाता कोई सूप
गेहूँ पिसवा कर ला देता
मोहल्ले का कोई लड़का
मिल-बैठ कर औरतें
मन भर गातीं गीत

गंगा नहीं है तो क्या हुआ
गाँव की छुटकी नदी नहीं है तो क्या हुआ
यमुना तो है
हर नदी धड़कती है दूसरी नदी में
जैसे एक शहर प्रवाहित होता है
दूसरे शहर में

पर सूरज एक है
सबका सूरज एक

हे दीनानाथ!
हे भास्कर!
अर्घ्य स्वीकार करो

वह शहर जो पीछे छूट गया है
वह गाँव जो उदास है
वे घर जिसमें बंद पड़े हैं ताले
जहाँ कुंडली मारे बैठा है अँधेरा
वहाँ ठहर जाना
अपने घोड़ों को कहना
वे वहाँ रुके रहें थोड़ी देर

हे दिनकर!
यह नारियल यह केला यह ठेकुआ
सब तुम्हारे लिए है
सब तुम्हारे लिए।

Prayer Before Birth / Louis Macneice

I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.