A Cry Among The Voices Poem by Showkat Ahmad Wani

We lost our sense as glaciers melt away,
Condemned beneath the curse of warming fire.
Each droplet fell into the chasm's maw,
While hunters strode through night to claim our souls.
I roam through countless shades of lifeless forms,
To find one word of Ibrahim to speak—
A breath of spring amidst the tyrant's blaze.
Yet all I hear is hunters' hollow cries,
Their voices fanning flames to feed the bird.
We shed our crown for rags of fleeting self,
And lost our minds to specters vast and vague.
We are the lost—yet know not what we seek.
Once crowned with glory, hearts imbued with faith,
Our tongues adorned with truth, our minds with light,
We drank from wells of wisdom, page by page,
And cast the veil of darkness to the sun.
They sought the soul; they strove to find the truth.
But now we forge the false to chase the false.
Our schools breed beasts and craft the minds of wilds.
We wear a robe of virtue, yet we kneel
Before the throne where devil's senses reign.
We turned our faith to trade and bent to lies.
We think in borrowed thought to crush our own,
And act in others' ways to kill our grief.
We smile in others' joy, like owls at dawn,
Yet drink the night to quench our inner void.
In doubt we breathe; in doubt we drape our flesh.
We eat the doubt, and sip it down in thirst.
We walk in doubt; we speak in doubtful tones.
We are the doubting shades that dwell in dark,
The dead in soul, in mind, in lifeless breath.
They fought to rise in light—we fell to gloom.
We buy the dark, embrace the endless shade,
And share its void with hollow hearts and minds.
Now who shall bring the dawn to break this night?
And strike with golden shafts to wake our limbs?
Once bright, we touched the zenith of the stars,
Yet lost our light by slumbering through death.
They burned to gleam, and lit the distant dark,
They soared through peaks and stormed through raging tides
To cast away the roughness of the world.
Yet we, like whispers, fade in shadow's sea,
Consumed within the belly of the deep,
And waste ourselves for passing, silken joy.
Yet none may shake our slumber, call not death
Upon this dream of dull, unthinking thought.
Who dares to stand against the winter's grasp?
Against the hunter's eye and cruel deceit?
You call to us to chase away the dark,
Yet I call this a crime—to wake the lost.
From feigned repose, arise to meet the dawn!
Or thou art dead for giving breath to life.
[July,2007]