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McFarland California
Pash lives here in the orchards 
plums apples grapes
oranges apricots,
in the fields of wheat and cotton

The wind the sun pigeons
the drowsy tractors
ask Pash:
tell us: what was it like as a child,
and as a young man?
When cotton balls bloom like
clusters of stars in your dreams
don’t you feel restless?
When you remember the sun
sliding on the sand dunes in your village,
on the prison walls, in the dreams of the
sleeping prisoners, don’t you feel sad?
Pash stays quiet.

On a nearby line
children’s clothes sway
in the afternoon sun.

 
Poet's Note: Pash: A Punjabi poet who lived in California in 1987 and was assassinated by Sikh fundamentalists in March 1988 in his home village in East Punjab.

© 1995, Amarjit Chandan with Ajmer Rode and John Welch
From: Jarhan
Publisher: Aesthetic Publications, Ludhiana, 1995


© Translation: 2007, Amarjit Chandan with Ajmer Rode and John Welch