Lorette C. Luzajic, Translated into Urdu by Saad Ali

Empire of Light ll, by Rene Magritte (Belgium) 1950

The Writer

A few years ago, a writer friend I loved was sick with cancer and I was looking after him. When I took him to the hospice, he packed nothing but a hand-drawn card from Ofelia, and left this note addressed to his landlords, taped to the stove: "I am going to a nice place to die. When I am finished with that welcome task, a trusted colleague of mine will enter the premises to take care of my belongings and tidy up for you. Please do not mistake my literary papers and classical records for trash and put them out on the curb."

Lorette C. Luzajic

This poem was first published at Black Coffee Review. It also appeared in the author's book, Pretty Time Machine: Ekphrastic Prose Poems.

 
Transliteration

Musanif

Kuch saal pehle, aik musanif dost, jis se main payar karti thi, cancer ki bemari mein mubtala tha aur main uski timardari kar rhi thi. Jab main usse hospice chornae gae to uss ne kuch samaan nahein baandha siwaye Ofelia ke hath se banaye hue card ke aur ye note apne malik-makan ke liye choolae se tape ke saath chipka ke choar diya: “main aik achi jage marne ke liye ja raha hoon. Jab main is khush-aaind kam se farigh ho jaon ga to mera aik bohat bharose-mand saathi is jage se mera saara samaan le jae ga aur tumhare liye safaei bhe kar de ga. Meharbani farma kar mere aadbi muqalaat aur classical records ko galti se bhi radi na samajh lena aur bahir sarak ke kinare na rakh dena.”

translated into Urdu by Saad Ali

Saad Ali  (b. 1980 C.E. in Okara, Pakistan) has been brought up in the UK and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. He is an existential philosopher-poet. Ali has authored four books of poetry i.e. Ephemeral Echoes (AuthorHouse, 2018), Metamorphoses: Poetic Discourses (AuthorHouse, 2019), Ekphrases: Book One (AuthorHouse, 2020), and Prose Poems: Βιβλίο Άλφα (AuthorHouse, 2020). By profession, he is a Lecturer, Consultant and Trainer/Mentor. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, and Tagore. He is fond of the Persian, Chinese and Greek cuisines. He likes learning different languages, travelling by train and exploring cities on foot. To learn more about his work, please visit www.saadalipoetry.com.
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​Lorette C. Luzajic is a writer living in Toronto, Canada. She studied journalism at Ryerson University. She most often writes about art, and has a seven year column on Wine and Art pairings at Good Food Revolution. Her creative writing has appeared in several hundred journals and magazines online and in print, and about a dozen anthologies as well. She has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and her one of her two works nominated for Best of the Net was a finalist. She is the author of five poetry books, including Pretty Time Machine, a collection of ekphrastic prose poems. Lorette is the founding editor of The Ekphrastic Review, a journal devoted entirely to literature inspired by visual art.  She is also an award-winning visual artist, whose collage paintings are internationally collected and exhibited, and have appeared in galleries, museums, reality TV shows, billboards, magazine ads, and more. Visit her at www.mixedupmedia.ca.