closer Faiz has left the legacy of his work for the world, and to me the legacy of an extraordinary companionship that leaped across the borders of our separate cultures We never could have imagined that January 1979 in Honolulu that the conference called in the name of the interaction of cultures would produce this collaboration This fall I embarked on the study of Urdu My Christmas present to Faiz was to have been a letter with his name written in Urdu script, signed with mine also in Urdu Instead he is gone That letter will never be written One final poem I don't have the original literal version The Day Death Comes How will it be the day death comes9 Perhaps like the gift when night begins, the first kiss on the lips, given unasked, the kiss that opens the way to marvelous worlds while in the distance, an April of nameless flowers agitates the moon s heart Perhaps in this way when the morning, green with unopened buds begins to sway in the bedroom of the beloved and the tinkle of stars as they ruch to depart can be heard on the silent windows What ^/il! it be like, the day death comes7 Perhaps like a vein screaming wi^h the premonition of pain under the edge of a knife, as a shadow, the assassin holding the knife spreads out with a wing span from one end of the world to the other Whichever way death comes, or whenever, in the guise of a disdainful beloved who is always cold, there will be the same words of farewell to the heart "Thank God it is finished the night of the broken-hearted Praise be to the meeting of lips the honeyed lips / have known " In his poetry m his steadfast service to his people, in the memories he has left in millions of hearts everywhere and in my own heart, Faiz will continue to live ' New York, December 1984 ' Reprinted with the permission of Columbia Magazine Copyright 1985 Annual of Urdu Studies, #5 ]_]_Q