Agha Shahid Ali - In Memory of Begum Akhtar lyrics

In Memory of Begum Akhtar (d. 30 October 1974) 1 Your d**h in every paper, 
boxed in the black and white 
of photographs, obituaries, the sky warm, blue, ordinary, 
no hint of calamity, no room for sobs, 
even between the lines. I wish to talk of the end of the world. 2 Do your fingers still scale the hungry 
Bhairavi, or simply the muddy shroud? Ghazal, that d**h-sustaining widow, 
sobs in dingy archives, hooked to you. 
She wears her grief, a moon-soaked white, 
corners the sky into disbelief. Ghazal, that d**h-sustaining widow,
You've finally polished catastrophe, 
the note you seasoned with decades 
of Ghalib, Mir, Faiz: I innovate on a note-less raga. 3 Exiling you to cold mud, 
your coffin, stupid and white, 
astounds by its ignorance. It wears its blank pride, 
defleshing the nomad's echo. 
I follow you to the earth's claw, shouldering time's shadow. 
This is history's bitter arrogance, 
this moment of the bone's freedom. 4 One cannot cross-examine the dead, but I've taken the circumstantial evidence, 
your records, pictures, tapes, 
and offered a careless testimony. I wish to summon you in defence, 
but the grave's damp and cold, now when 
Malhar longs to stitch the rain, wrap you in its notes: you elude 
completely. The rain doesn't speak, 
and life, once again, closes in, 
rea**erting this earth where the air 
meets in a season of grief. (for Saleem Kidwai)