{"id":2675,"date":"2011-04-03T22:03:48","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T03:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/2011\/04\/03\/a-prison-evening-by-faiz-ahmed-faiz\/"},"modified":"2011-04-03T22:03:48","modified_gmt":"2011-04-04T03:03:48","slug":"a-prison-evening-by-faiz-ahmed-faiz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/2011\/04\/03\/a-prison-evening-by-faiz-ahmed-faiz\/","title":{"rendered":"A Prison Evening by Faiz Ahmed Faiz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A Prison Evening by Faiz Ahmed Faiz<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Each star a rung,<br \/>\nnight comes down the spiral<br \/>\nstaircase of the evening.<br \/>\nThe breeze passes by so very close<br \/>\nas if someone just happened to speak of love.<br \/>\nIn the courtyard,<br \/>\nthe trees are absorbed refugees<br \/>\nembroidering maps of return on the sky.<br \/>\nOn the roof,<br \/>\nthe moon &#8211; lovingly, generously &#8211;<br \/>\nis turning the stars<br \/>\ninto a dust of sheen.<br \/>\nFrom every corner, dark-green shadows,<br \/>\nin ripples, come towards me.<br \/>\nAt any moment they may break over me,<br \/>\nlike the waves of pain each time I remember<br \/>\nthis separation from my lover.<\/p>\n<p>This thought keeps consoling me:<br \/>\nthough tyrants may command that lamps be smashed<br \/>\nin rooms where lovers are destined to meet,<br \/>\nthey cannot snuff out the moon, so today,<br \/>\nnor tomorrow, no tyranny will succeed,<br \/>\nno poison of torture make me bitter,<br \/>\nif just one evening in prison<br \/>\ncan be so strangely sweet,<br \/>\nif just one moment anywhere on this earth.<\/p>\n<p><em>(Translated from the Urdu by Agha Shahid Ali)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img src='https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/moon.jpg' alt='A Prison Evening' \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Prison Evening by Faiz Ahmed Faiz Each star a rung, night comes down the spiral staircase of the evening. The breeze passes by so very close as if someone just happened to speak of love. In the courtyard, the trees are absorbed refugees embroidering maps of return on the sky. On the roof, the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/2011\/04\/03\/a-prison-evening-by-faiz-ahmed-faiz\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A Prison Evening by Faiz Ahmed Faiz<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}