[Is there one God?]

Azra Abbas
Translated from the Urdu by Daisy Rockwell

     Is there one God? God sees, he should see:
     between him and us the distance is now shorter. perhaps you won’t believe.
     in the echo of their voices the wheels of the gurney crush even life and our blossoms
spy on us as well
     we shouldn’t listen for the sound of footsteps.
     the corridors are empty, the world is empty, the people have left.
     people . . . people are dead. people are already dead.

:خدا ایک ہے؟ خدا دیکھتا ہے، اسے دیکھنا چاہیے
اس کے اور ہمارے درمیان اب فاصلہ کم رہ گیا ہے: تم کو شاید یقین نہیں آئے گا۔
اسٹریچر کے پہیے اپنی آواز کی گونج میں زندگی کچلتے بھی ہیں اور ہماری مخبری بھی کرتے ہیں
،ہمیں جوتوں کی چاپ پہ کان نہیں لگانا چاہیے،
کوریڈور خالی ہیں، دنیا خالی ہے، لوگ جا چکے ہیں۔
لوگ۔۔۔ لوگ مر چکے ہیں؛ لوگ مر چکے ہیں۔

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Black and white image of Azra Abbas

Azra Abbas was born in 1950 in Kanpur, India, and immigrated to Karachi, Pakistan, as a child. She has written seven collections of poetry, two memoirs, a collection of short stories, and a novel. She lives in Karachi, where she is composing a novel and writing poetry.

Black and white headshot of Daisy Rockwell
Photo:
Beowulf Sheehan

Daisy Rockwell is an artist, writer, and International Booker Prize–winning Hindi-Urdu translator living in Vermont. Her books include the forthcoming novel Alice Sees Ghosts and memoir Our Friend, Art.

Color cover image of "Sleep Journeys" by Azra Abbas, translated by Daisy Rockwell

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Sleep Journeys
University of Wisconsin Press

Madison, Wisconsin

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A single book-length poem, divided into three cantos, Sleep Journeys is a dreamlike rumination that explores faith, female desire, and the subconscious mind. Abbas’s language is simple and austere, the complexity of the work emerging through repetition, interweaving, and juxtaposition. The result is a gossamer thread that leads the reader through a labyrinth of metaphor, imagery, and awe.

“A work of rapturous imagination. On every page, Abbas took my breath away with her astonishingly vibrant images, which Rockwell re-creates with riveting immediacy in her stunning translation. What a joy to read a translation in which the translator and poet are so well matched in their talent and inventiveness.”
—Idra Novey

“Sometimes Abbas’s poems are weather warnings, sometimes bulletin boards from the bazaar, sometimes whispered admonitions. Some are, indeed, delicate curses, others are shouting matches; some are quiet prayers, others are howls of protest; and some are jokes so elaborate and heartfelt that you smile and clutch your heart at the same time.”
—Mohammed Hanif

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