Night Sky

This made-up light of the city at night,
prickles 
my eyes: where are
the stars? 

Only half the sky is left to observe
after a thousand divisions. That too’s stolen  
by the rain cloud: where are the stars
in my city?

Where are the stars, or have they left us
to our own devices?
Or have the lovers plucked all up to gift
them to their sweethearts?

Without those stars, bland 
is this dimly dark half-sky.
Invoke them. Or the night is incomplete 
without —

(This is my translation of a nazm in Hindi, ‘रातों में शहरों की बनावटी रौशनी’, written by my writer and musician friend Saurabh Kumar)