N. M. Rashed HASAN, THE POTTER: FOUR CANTOS Hasan, the Potter-1 Jehanzad below on the street I stand distraught facing your door It is I Hasan the potter This morning when I saw you at the old apothecary Yousaf s your eyes still had that lustre a longing for which had kept me frenzied for nine years During those nine years Jehanzad I ignored my poor distressed pots— the pots shaped by my dexterous hands those lifeless creatures of clay and color and enamel They would whisper to each other Where now is Hasan the potter9 Towards us his own creations he acts like a god forsaking us as gods do Jehanzad those nine years passed as time over some buried city The clay in troughs whose fragrance earlier would make me feel ecstatic had stiffened and turned into rock Goblets decanters glasses ewers candle-holders and vases-tokens of my humble livelihood expressions of my art-lay broken And I Hasan the potter my feet bound in mud dust in my hair naked at the potter s wheel hair dishevelled my head on my knees like a grief stricken god 53