The Wolf’s Postscript to ‘Little Red Riding Hood’

Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Walter_Crane26.jpg

First, grant me my sense of history:

I did it for posterity,

for kindergarten teachers

and a clear moral:

Little girls shouldn’t wander off

in search of strange flowers,

and they mustn’t speak to strangers.

And then grant me my generous sense of plot:

Couldn’t I have gobbled her up

right there in the jungle?

Why did I ask her where her grandma lived?

As if I, a forest-dweller,

didn’t know of the cottage

under the three oak trees

and the old woman lived there

all alone?

As if I couldn’t have swallowed her years before?

And you may call me the Big Bad Wolf,

now my only reputation.

But I was no child-molester

though you’ll agree she was pretty.

And the huntsman:

Was I sleeping while he snipped

my thick black fur

and filled me with garbage and stones?

I ran with that weight and fell down,

simply so children could laugh

at the noise of the stones

cutting through my belly,

at the garbage spilling out

with a perfect sense of timing,

just when the tale

should have come to an end.

~ Agha Shahid Ali

The Wolf’s Postscript to ‘Little Red Riding Hood’

Credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Walter_Crane26.jpg

First, grant me my sense of history:

I did it for posterity,

for kindergarten teachers

and a clear moral:

Little girls shouldn’t wander off

in search of strange flowers,

and they mustn’t speak to strangers.

And then grant me my generous sense of plot:

Couldn’t I have gobbled her up

right there in the jungle?

Why did I ask her where her grandma lived?

As if I, a forest-dweller,

didn’t know of the cottage

under the three oak trees

and the old woman lived there

all alone?

As if I couldn’t have swallowed her years before?

And you may call me the Big Bad Wolf,

now my only reputation.

But I was no child-molester

though you’ll agree she was pretty.

And the huntsman:

Was I sleeping while he snipped

my thick black fur

and filled me with garbage and stones?

I ran with that weight and fell down,

simply so children could laugh

at the noise of the stones

cutting through my belly,

at the garbage spilling out

with a perfect sense of timing,

just when the tale

should have come to an end.

~ Agha Shahid Ali

Farewell

 At a certain point I lost track of you.
 They make a desolation and call it peace.
 when you left even the stones were buried:
 the defenceless would have no weapons.

 When the ibex rubs itself against the rocks,
 who collects its fallen fleece from the slopes?
 O Weaver whose seams perfectly vanished,
 who weighs the hairs on the jeweller's balance?
 They make a desolation and call it peace.
 Who is the guardian tonight of the Gates of Paradise?

 My memory is again in the way of your history.
 Army convoys all night like desert caravans:
 In the smoking oil of dimmed headlights, time dissolved- all
 winter- its crushed fennel.
 We can't ask them: Are you done with the world?

 In the lake the arms of temples and mosques are locked in each other's
 reflections.

 Have you soaked saffron to pour on them when they are found like this
 centuries later in this country
 I have stitched to your shadow?

 In this country we step out with doors in our arms
 Children run out with windows in their arms.
 You drag it behind you in lit corridors.
 if the switch is pulled you will be torn from everything.

 At a certain point I lost track of you.
 You needed me. You needed to perfect me.
 In your absence you polished me into the Enemy.
 Your history gets in the way of my memory.
 I am everything you lost. You can't forgive me.
 I am everything you lost. Your perfect Enemy.
 Your memory gets in the way of my memory:

 I am being rowed through Paradise in a river of Hell:
 Exquisite ghost, it is night.

 The paddle is a heart; it breaks the porcelain waves.
 It is still night. The paddle is a lotus.
 I am rowed- as it withers-toward the breeze which is soft as
 if it had pity on me.

 If only somehow you could have been mine, what wouldn't
 have happened in the world?

 I'm everything you lost. You won't forgive me.
 My memory keeps getting in the way of your history.
 There is nothing to forgive.You can't forgive me.
 I hid my pain even from myself; I revealed my pain only to myself.

 There is everything to forgive. You can't forgive me.

 If only somehow you could have been mine,
 what would not have been possible in the world?

~ Agha Shahid Ali

Farewell

 At a certain point I lost track of you.
 They make a desolation and call it peace.
 when you left even the stones were buried:
 the defenceless would have no weapons.

 When the ibex rubs itself against the rocks,
 who collects its fallen fleece from the slopes?
 O Weaver whose seams perfectly vanished,
 who weighs the hairs on the jeweller's balance?
 They make a desolation and call it peace.
 Who is the guardian tonight of the Gates of Paradise?

 My memory is again in the way of your history.
 Army convoys all night like desert caravans:
 In the smoking oil of dimmed headlights, time dissolved- all
 winter- its crushed fennel.
 We can't ask them: Are you done with the world?

 In the lake the arms of temples and mosques are locked in each other's
 reflections.

 Have you soaked saffron to pour on them when they are found like this
 centuries later in this country
 I have stitched to your shadow?

 In this country we step out with doors in our arms
 Children run out with windows in their arms.
 You drag it behind you in lit corridors.
 if the switch is pulled you will be torn from everything.

 At a certain point I lost track of you.
 You needed me. You needed to perfect me.
 In your absence you polished me into the Enemy.
 Your history gets in the way of my memory.
 I am everything you lost. You can't forgive me.
 I am everything you lost. Your perfect Enemy.
 Your memory gets in the way of my memory:

 I am being rowed through Paradise in a river of Hell:
 Exquisite ghost, it is night.

 The paddle is a heart; it breaks the porcelain waves.
 It is still night. The paddle is a lotus.
 I am rowed- as it withers-toward the breeze which is soft as
 if it had pity on me.

 If only somehow you could have been mine, what wouldn't
 have happened in the world?

 I'm everything you lost. You won't forgive me.
 My memory keeps getting in the way of your history.
 There is nothing to forgive.You can't forgive me.
 I hid my pain even from myself; I revealed my pain only to myself.

 There is everything to forgive. You can't forgive me.

 If only somehow you could have been mine,
 what would not have been possible in the world?

~ Agha Shahid Ali