It Is All What I Have

It is all what I have,
My soul and my existence
Imprinted and embedded
In these lines, drawn and felt
In this star and crescent

Long are those trails and hidden
Stories of my ancestors
Some in me and some in graves
In its lap, intoxicated in its slumber
My old remains, my ancestors
Years it takes to build this oasis
Which we all call home and our place
So easy to destroy its soul,
In a moment of frenzy and forgetfulness

In search of all those tracks,
As I travel back in time
In search of faces, I never saw
In search of words, I never heard
It is all what I have, from memory
Of my past, and of my present
It is all what I have, my country

Questions are often asked
Doubts are often raised
In persistence and in honesty
For progression and for adventure
Into the world, which they never saw
Our ancestors, our sacrifices

But still remains, the old passion
In me and in you, and in us all
It is all what I have, so little
In words and from memory
And in you, my Pakistan
Our existence and our souls
The ode to the beautiful sacrifice
Of our ancestors and of our dreams!

Asim Khan