The Poem: Kashmir

None of your plans, could pin us down. Our ambitions fly free.

Like a wind that blows high, master of its own territory: when last did I cry.

( Nasir Khan )

We are all one, we beat as one heart, for each other, and for our valley.

We are victorious and always will be for all times to see: when last did I cry.

( Fazal Ul HaQs )

And these voices,screaming in my head, remind me of my brother,my mother.

They too had a dream, apparently too costly: when last did I cry.

( Sabiyah )

Blustery bullets and domineering glare, scare us no more.

For we have shouldered coffins of our hopes of democracy: when last did I cry.

( Seerat Zehra )

I have heard of blood soaked mourning from the burning sands of Karbala; I lived the same mourning in the shades of Chinar.

The wails resonating in the crimson Jhelum, bloody yet more thirsty: when last did I cry.

( Essar Batool )

I will visit you O beloved Wamiq, Sameer and Assiya, I will one day,

to tell you that you now rest in a land of no tyranny: when last did I cry.

( Shams Irfan )

The Chinars that used to shade our childhood will be free of sandbags and barbed wires

and nobody will question our identity: when last did I cry.

( Shams Irfan )

I will visit you again, O beloved, to tell you that

there is nothing green in our saffron fields, only poetic purple bounty, when last did I cry.

( Shams Irfan )

Gagged voices, broken limbs, tear-some eyes. That is how we are defined.

The land of blinded sons, is our new identity: when last did I cry.

( Aqib Iqbal Dar )

His soul danced on the edge of time like the dew on the tip of a leaf.

As they lay him in his grave, his friends come and join the breeze, welcome him with merry: when last did I cry?

( Mouris )