From Poem to Screen: How Ashraf Aboul-Yazid’s “A Train Crosses the Desert” Found a New Life in Cinema

Poetry rarely travels alone. Its metaphors, rhythms, and silences often transcend the written page, finding unexpected forms in other arts. Such is the case with A Train Crosses the Desert, the evocative poem by Egyptian writer Ashraf Aboul-Yazid, which inspired Pakistani filmmaker Rahul Aijaz to create a short film bearing the same title. Yet the relationship between poem and film is far more complex than a conventional adaptation. Rather than translating verse into images, Aijaz entered into a creative dialogue with the poem, allowing literature and cinema to illuminate one another.

For the filmmaker, the encounter with the poem was deeply intuitive. While developing a personal story inspired by the memory of his late cousin Farooq, he searched for a literary work capable of inhabiting the emotional world of his characters. After revisiting a collection of Ashraf Aboul-Yazid’s poetry, one poem immediately distinguished itself.

The decision was instinctive rather than analytical. The poem did not provide the story; instead, it offered its emotional landscape. Aijaz often describes the poems as the railway tracks upon which his cinematic train could travel. Without them, he believes, the journey would never have reached its destination.

This distinction reveals something fundamental about the relationship between literature and flm. Rather than illustrating the poem, Aijaz allows its imagery, symbolism, and emotional resonance to deepen an already existing narrative. The result is not an adaptation in the traditional sense, but an artistic conversation between two independent works.

One of the most remarkable qualities of A Train Crosses the Desert lies in its openness to interpretation. Like much contemporary poetry, Ashraf Aboul-Yazid’s text refuses linear storytelling, choosing instead to evoke states of exile, alienation, memory, identity, and existential uncertainty through metaphor.

For Aijaz, this poetic ambiguity became one of the film’s greatest strengths.

The train itself becomes an especially powerful symbol. Within the poem it suggests movement through landscapes marked by illusion, displacement, and emotional exhaustion. Within the film, however, the metaphor expands even further. The train becomes life itself—a journey that may be painful to continue and equally painful to abandon.

Although deeply rooted in Sindhi language and culture, the film never loses sight of the poem’s universal dimensions. The dialogue remains authentically Sindhi, enriched by colloquial expressions and the emotional intimacy possible only in one’s mother tongue. Yet cultural specificity never limits accessibility. Instead, it strengthens authenticity while allowing universal human emotions to emerge naturally.

The use of the tambourine, a recurring sonic element throughout the film, similarly bridges regional tradition and poetic symbolism. Rather than functioning merely as a musical instrument, it becomes another voice within the narrative, echoing the emotional cadence established by the poetry itself.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Aijaz’s interpretation is his understanding of silence. In a film centered on two musician brothers, there is almost no conventional musical score. In a film named A Train Crosses the Desert, neither trains nor deserts dominate the visual landscape. These deliberate absences mirror the economy of poetry itself.

Silence becomes rhythm. Pauses become language. What remains unspoken often carries greater emotional weight than dialogue.

The filmmaker sees no contradiction in this. Poetry, after all, depends as much upon its spaces as upon its words. Meaning often emerges between the lines, just as cinema frequently speaks through stillness rather than speech.

Among all the verses incorporated into the film, Aijaz repeatedly returns to one idea from A Train Crosses the Desert: even if we could stop the train, would we truly leave it?

This question, simultaneously simple and devastating, becomes the philosophical center of both works. Neither poem nor film attempts to answer it. Instead, each invites the audience to confront the dilemma according to their own experiences.

Such openness perhaps explains why audiences across different countries have responded so intensely to the film. Screened at numerous international festivals, it has repeatedly left viewers in profound silence, often moved to tears. According to Aijaz, these reactions arise because neither poetry nor cinema demands intellectual explanation before emotional understanding. One simply feels.

It offers atmosphere.

It offers ambiguity.

It offers emotional depth that often resists literal expression.

Aijaz believes cinema itself is a form of visual poetry. When actual poetry enters the cinematic space, the result becomes something greater than either medium alone. Literature and film cease to compete; instead, they enrich one another through a shared search for human truth.

Ultimately, A Train Crosses the Desert demonstrates that poetry need not remain confined to the page. Its metaphors can continue their journey through new artistic languages while preserving the mystery that first gave them life. In Rahul Aijaz’s sensitive interpretation, Ashraf Aboul-Yazid’s poem becomes not merely a source of inspiration but a living companion, guiding viewers along emotional railway tracks where literature and cinema meet, and where every spectator must ultimately decide whether to remain aboard the train or step into the unknown.

If you’d like, I can also make it sound more like a high-end literary magazine such as World Literature Today, Asymptote, or Wasafiri, with a more essayistic and critical tone.