Nightingale of Pukhtoonwala: Rehman Baba

Here he rests
The old nightingale
In its peace and grave,
From the descendants
Of an old tribe and its code
The old settlers, at the outskirts
Through years of travel
The poet, in mausoleum of words

The old Pushtu poet
Carried in his words,
The echoes of peace and music
The Old Sufi
Carried in his soul,
The echoes of unity and humility
From the old rivers to its tribes
The imagination that were to capture
For centuries across the time
The old love affair,
With land and its descendants
Now lies in ruins, his words,
The resting place, in holes

Call they themselves
The proponents of change
By destruction and rope,
By death and by smoke
The old echoes still there,
In those fallen grounds
Live I not in the mausoleum
But in those hearts
Of millions that came,
And millions that are now
Never will you succeed,
I am them and they are me,
Bounded by the music
And the legends of this place
Mountains are my witness
And my words, the echo
Of distant past and now yours,

What is it you gained, if gain it is you say,
Maimed you have the old past and its land
The brutality of invaders to the heart that is stone
Inside you, as you have killed yourself
Worry not for me, but for the future ahead
I will always be there in my words
See you must with your own soul
Those moments of peace
As I hear your footsteps in my awake
I am already dead, what more can you do
Killed you have yourself, as I cry for you
In my words, in my land, of distant times
Now the playground, for devil to claim
The imaginary stakes and the real crimes
Remember, it’s in you, the old music
Claim it, the nightingales of time!