Do you remember that autumn day The day you came upon me in the park? I stood in the shadows of the banyan tree Preparing for a final flight of the heart You swept along so light and so true ‘Hello’ you said ‘this October sky is so blue!’
I was taken aback, I was agitated I stood there awkward, uncertainly You didn’t walk on, you stood there rooted Like an interfering angel on a samaritan spree I didn’t want to hear what you had to say I wished you’d sprout wings and just fly away
So I looked through you, hoping that you’d go on But you just ambled around my space The one I had for hours thought upon Where I’d finally leave this wretched place This life, this strife, this gnawing misery This heart that keened so relentlessly
But you stayed and then you held my hand All this while I had not said a word to you You had looked into the depths of my soul And you knew … my friend, you just knew! I remember the withered grass you sat with me on The sun was hidden, but your own light shone
We sat and we sat, you by my side An angel, a friend, a beautiful stranger You parried with such elegant ease My monsters of desperation and danger Your warmth enveloped my aching heart That day you pulled me out of my abysmal dark
Now here you lie in a white satin bed Shrouded in scents of final farewells I touch your hand, it lies cold and inert Your eyes are closed, your breath is still I couldn’t save you dear friend, from final cessations But then you always were the angel in our equation.
Some say our earth is splitting in two Shifting off its axis in directions anew Parallel worlds, a rift at the core One is wrought with strife and war Contentions and conflicts and hate galore This land is mine! They thunder and roar I was here 3000 years before! Decrees keep pelting like acid rain From the sacramental mouths of men Sitting in legislative dominion Your bodies, our choice say all those Born in the spitting image of god The owners, the stoners, the masters, the lords
The other earth … well that is a mystery Wrapped in illusions, visions and dreams Aspirations so secret They lie buried beneath Lungsful of air Every stalwart heartbeat Where Biology is a factual thing Not contorted into statutes and bills Where connections are made Forged by the soul Where language and lore And race and skin Are just rainbows that arch Over our beautiful earth
They say the split is cleaving in two Our world of bloodied green and blue I want to be with the ephemeral lot The one that’s poetic, as yet unbegot Even if that means that I will cease To have and to hold, to breathe and to be At least I’ll be done with our broken world Be a star in the sky An autumn-blown leaf And that dear friend is all that I want When I introspect When I really delve deep.
Such a beautiful thing this imperfection This little bit that you have sprinkled Into your soul The laugh that doesn’t tinkle, it echoes From the walls like a summer storm It doesn’t hold me in a trance It takes me along in its wholesomeness Making my atoms dance
Your smile that doesn’t dress itself In perfect pearls of evenness Instead it reaches for your eyes Hugging the lines etched there By all your joy and your good cheer It doesn’t enchant, it makes me grin There are no beguiling starry skies Your smile makes my blood glide warm within
Your body that wears its comfortable cloak Of comfort food and late night snacks It doesn’t pack 6-pack abs, instead It carries an inner anchoring That special thing that comes From going through thick and thin And still walking on, striding, taking Others along whose light has fallen dim
Your spirit that lark of joy that resides Inside your big big heart, it deploys Like an 8-watt bulb of gentle sunlight When you walk into a room and smile And crinkle your twinkling, mirthful eyes I see it then, the beautiful imperfection That makes me catch my breath Every now and then. I feel a tenderness A quiet joy and I know that I have found the one Whose angels and demons play well with mine.
The rubber grove is wintering Bare branches raised in quiet prayer The trees in meditation Their copse a little haven From the chill that’s spreading everywhere They sit together in the grove Yet solitude wraps each one In arms soothing, slumbersome And there resting they will remain Until earth wakens them again
The fallen leaves have long since ceased To sit lightly on the ground They have sunk into their beds Laid down their tawny-russet heads Hidden away, they will not be found The trees remain skeletal, upright Waiting for spring to arrive But until then they will not sing Stirring songs of vital things For now the grove is wintering
Something deep inside of me Keens for this state of rest To step out of life’s lusty choir For a while to quietly retire From her spring-loaded behest I want to hide, to lie low Take each hour nice and slow Hibernate in my little den Until I can smile at life again Like the grove I will be wintering.
The winter mist is rolling in Tracing umbras and penumbras On liquid walls conjuring Illusions of nostalgic things Like tapestries of sunny hills And shadowlands where valleys stretch Into soft concaves Of velvety days shimmering At their edges, glimmering In the halos of lit up orbs Glittering, pulsating Watching and observing all Like eager sentries making sure The invading mist Covets no more Than the silver kiss That it bestows On each doorway As it tiptoes In and then away Into the darkness further along All the while As it glides Whispering its vapory song.
I want to walk into the sunset Far, far away from here Find a portal for myself, whisk away to somewhere else Far away from here But my dear what then? What will become of you I think I’m the crutch that you lean on The weathered plank that you pace on Ironically your prop so hardy Has grown a rift, become foolhardy A fissure sprung in my core Where it must mature into rings Of mellow age and other things But the cleft, a secret break Hidden away has slowly swelled With snaggy splinters, spiny edged Letting in light that I had lost Golden- yellow, shimmering, quiet And it has cleaved the crack some more More and more clearly I see the door Where the gleam keeps pulling me Towards the sunset thrilling me Far, far away from here.
Autumn’s here, the leaves they fall As they do when summer drifts away Slowly leaf by leaf, butterflies and bees All whisk away to other places where nippy winds Frost-nibbled grass and bare trees Have had their day. They change places For a spell, the cities wear new faces Borrowed for a while They smile, they sleep, they laugh, they dream Hand in hand with the people passing by
Autumn’s here, the leaves should fall As they do when summer slips away But the seasons can’t find their way Into this city, its leaves, butterflies and bees Have ceased to be. Permanently. Their carcasses one With those of their humans that once Lived in this place. They can’t change places Even for a while They cannot sit and weep and weep and weep Where mothers are slain and children are left to die.
He looks at him, his son-in-law Blinking, not recognizing him It has been over half a year Since this son was last here Half a lifetime in his existence Scrambled by dementia. Aasiya The daughter he’s barely spoken to Given in marriage at 22 He now remembers crystal clear As she sits with him, ministering Talking to him now without fear Ungrudgingly for all the years She was not enough. Arif Her husband with the business The opinions and the maleness Was the apple of her father’s eyes But now all he sees in the clouds of time Is this angel with her beautiful smile As she soothes him, and she feeds him Her gentle touch calming the storms Of confusion and disquietude That rage through him so often now All he sees, all he has eyes for Is his daughter, his beloved Aasiya.
You Are Too different Too controversial Too weird Too quiet Too absent
You Are Too passionate Too frigid Too pushy Too gregarious Too reserved
You Are Too opinionated Too invested Too indifferent, disinterested
You Are Too much but You Are Also not enough
These arrows used to fly East and west Between the bazaars and the mosques Down and up From my beating heart To my silent mouth, forging Right angles containing me In burnished boxes glittering bright But in the moorings Of all these paradoxes writhing out Like strident dirges from treacherous lyres Howling of brimstone and hellfire Now I hear only one thing I only hear that one constant thing
YOU ARE!
In the refrains that ring Thunder and break I hear it sing:
YOU ARE!
In all that cacophony In the clarion calls of propriety Pounding, rounding endlessly From the steeples of society That is all I ever hear now
🌸 YOU ARE! 🌸 YOU ARE! 🌸 YOU ARE! 🌸
Yes I am! I finally am! This is me And that is all I ever need to be.
The cursor blinks expectantly Compellingly, unyieldingly Something stirs my inner calm With tongs charged with electricity I see them bare their tungsten teeth Serrated, set and bite-ready They start to pick at the soft glow That cloaks my core delicately The zen shades come quickly undone One by one efficiently, unerringly Until the luminosity Of the buzzing pliers hits My chakras humming quietly The glow transforms to garish light I’m overtaken, panic strikes My heart leaps up, it’s on the run Blood rushing, pitching oxygen To my eyes and my extremities I blink once, twice and then again As the cursor straight and stark Marks its time ominously I tap-tap-delete-tap feverishly Fingers on the dread-locked keys But there is no hidden gem That flows from this cataclysm On the page in front of me I look up, I take a breath The screen retreats into its depths Some days it really is just best To give the grim cursor a rest.
Mahvash Mohtadullah 