I see the swing again Not the same but very like The one I used to fly upon A lifetime ago, I’m caught In a clutch of rememberings It was my first day of school I was the quiet one, so shy The teacher would be inclined To ask another little girl To take me under her fledgling wings A few minutes before The 11 o’clock bell would ring All kinds of dreadful things Would grip my little heart It would hammer in its cage As time closed upon the break Even as I rushed towards her desk Don’t forget! please don’t forget! To pick a friend for me today!
I’d come back home tired out My little head would pound and pound I couldn’t understand it then But I would go out and reach For the sturdy ropes of the swing As it rocked gently to and fro Waiting to hold me in Its reassuring cradling I’d swing and swing and swing up high Chase out all the daytime angst With every forward rush With every surge up to the sky I’d breathe in anew and fortify Until my sore heart soared again I couldn’t understand it then This self-soothing, this consoling
Life went on, its ebb and flow I duly shifted to my swing That I always found along the way Into its vital comforting The whoosh of the wind a lullaby A hypnotic whisper in my ears To let my troubles fall away To just fly and fly and fly up high As I kicked off into the liquid sky
When you went away I stopped looking for my swing That hollowness, that grief Those are things the lulling breeze Could not fill and cannot ease Their echoes ring, as they wring At heartstrings that pull them in I will not let them fall away Steeped, replete with memories I now carry all of these Forever and eternally Unwilling to set them free Upon a beclouding and benumbing breeze.
The day you went away Something died inside me too I thought that with time In the pithy wisdom of poets And cure-alls of self-help books In the endless cycle of the days That I’d come back to life To some semblance of pulsing life But I didn’t And that’s ok Isn’t the end of self the next terminus anyway?
The formidable ego that relentlessly keens For fantasies of euphoric times Trapped in snow globes Frozen for life Crashing like cannon balls Into raw hearts that survive That part of me died But that dead part of me Buried somewhere In the thick of my atoms that ricochet And my lungs that tirelessly inhale Is now also my quiet side A stoic, eternal, abiding thing Cloaked in The resolute infinity Of ceaseless serenity
In that sepulcher of my being There is no distraction, no noise No daunting end-times tunnels of light The lifeless part of me Is nerveless, unfaltering Impervious to everything Everything but the little flame You left behind when you went away Glowing softly just beyond The stillest, deadest part of me For me to gently find my way.
For my beloved sister who is swept in the constant tides of farewells and then meeting-again-for-too-short-a-while. And for all the other parents whose fledglings have taken wing, may you continue to find your joy and serenity.
They are the quickening parts of you That you bestow upon the world Beings that become other people Independent. Adult Then there’s the anxiety and tumult Of letting them go From the safe radius of the home From the proximity of your everyday touch From the protective circle of your sinewy arms Each muscle a testament To years of being superhuman A perpetual hero, a champion And now you also have Your own growing pains to bear Of them not being there As they make their start In places you can’t be Coming back to rest To lay down tired heads On other pillows, other beds Their childhood rooms Stirring softly with their scents But my dearest, don’t despair These aches pass, they morph They bloom into other things A kinship deep as all the seas A bond of care that is more even-keeled Conversations, confidences, the sharing of dreams
They are out there now Let them live and love With all their might You’ve done your part They know the tree The orchard, the seeds That they’ve sprung from Now let them go Let your fluttering, bursting heart Give them wings to fly Fly, fly, up, up high Into the vastness of the sky Let them whoop with joy Let them go Where the soul moves them Out into the brilliant world To take a little bit of it Make it their own Let them imprint it With their hearts and their minds Let them be quirky, let them be kind Let them be funny, let them be full Of passion, of hope, of tenderness Let them roar and cheer and also tear up At life’s beauty, excitement, its bruises and cuts Let them show all their own shades of loveliness Let them add to the shimmering throng Of all that’s vital, new and strong
And you, dear beloved With your empty nest Now filled with books Or paints or pets You who have begotten them Stand fast and true and wise Behind them. Cheer them on As they sing their own songs In the great choir of life.
The amalthas wears its yellow cape again I’m reminded of beautiful, bountiful things The gulmohar too dons its fiery crown The summer breeze feels cool on the skin
I sit here and watch nature frolic around me The fullness of life in her every glance She whispers of tender young roots in the earth Of new leaves on the banyan sashaying in a dance
I sit and I watch this surfeit of life And I hold my breath as I take it all in There’s a feeling inside, a low murmuring Telling me that summer will too soon end again
And then …
Where will I look for the amalthas bowers And the russet blooms of the flamboyant tree? Where will I seek those warm golden hours Cooled by the kiss of the summertime breeze?
My throat feels like cardboard My eyes are a-brim My breath comes in tatters I’m loosing my grip
But the amalthas shimmers, she pulsates with joy And the gulmohar bobs her flame-coloured head They’re humming of moments immersing me now No one, they sing, has seen forever yet
So hear me my universe, my cosmos of love Help me to ground myself here somehow Let me find my today, let me be touched Grateful and gladdened by the here and now.
Life goes on wrapped up in days Amd months and years And then something small, inconsequential Peeps out of a grainy abyss It emerges unshrouded, unexpected And the fragility That is also life, folds up The soft blanket about us And we feel the chill Of new news, the icicles Of probabilities, plausibilities Pierce benumbed flesh The fragility of life Touches us with light fingers, it tries But our hearts beat like the delicate wings Of butterflies at the end of spring We feel, we reel we come undone For a while or longer and then The chill settles into our bones Wistful companion for a season That somehow takes root While summer and autumn flit past in their time Winter settles into our boots In the lines of our palms And behind our eyelids like iodex balm Tearing now and then at flesh and veins Amid the dead quietness it brings Of endings, a resting in the dirges it sings Winter becomes our climate within And we toughen our skins With hope, nostalgia and other things And somehow we survive, we go on Wrapped in hours and days and years Until it happens all over again.
I heard it on the news Not the mainstream kind, no Their stories unravel to a sepulchral beat Where the truth lies buried under bones and teeth This was another source I read the caption and my heart Burst again Those men, women and children Were shot, sniped to the floor Because they’d gathered to collect Food, that had been plentiful before Growing in their fields and in their groves Now razed into cavernous holes Bleeding crimson into bare soles Into bare souls Bearing souls of loved ones gone On hearts and shoulders cut and torn Holding on to hope for one more hour Budding gently like a flower Reaching for a little flour For loved ones that still breathed amid The glowing flitter of their dead They reached for hope spattered in red They reached for hope pockmarked with lead They reached for hope among their dead They reached and were shot in their heads
Vermillion petals drift again in the wind Blooming in the ether of Palestine.
My palm in the flower pot Has grown tall Each frond strong A testament to nurture Mine, I like to believe And the perfection Of where she lives in our home Hers and mine Our spaces combined She sits across from me Diagonally In the warmth of the floor lamp An IKEA purchase A capitalist ploy gone right She sits light in her loamy soil In the soft glow From the 6 watt trio of bulbs Sometimes of a late evening My day done, when I’m thinking Of nothing in particular, she Waves a grand green frond at me In a little conversation A whisper in the quietness A reminder maybe That we’re still here In our little eden of serenity I smile at her my mouth lifting up My spirits in its curve She rustles happily Lightening in that moment Also the lines on my palms Sweetening destiny My palm in the flower pot In that mystical little moment Stirs the whole cosmos around me.
This is an unlovely ode to bad relationships. It is also for all those still tempted to give toxic relationships chance number 2 and 3 and God forbid even more. May you keep moving ahead, above, beyond.
That gaze was just too intense My head felt like a beaten egg Yolks and white all combined To give me wishy-washy legs
I was usually in control My heart never rested on my sleeve But that stare, your yen laid bare Made my ribs into a sieve
And so my sage old heart popped out Of its latticed bulwarked den It leaped gaily down my arm And upon my sleeve I wore it then
It leaped and skipped all the while That you sat to my left I tried to brush it off my arm But my heart dodged me, it was deft
By and by it took up the song Of new love, brazen and bold My thrumming blood picked up the tune As it danced in its venous folds
I felt my eyes light up like stars My face catch on wild fire As you cast your eerie spell Of infatuation and desire
The rest as they say is history It doesn’t behoove my gentle pen To transcribe and eternalize Chapters closed with an amen!
Like loaded missiles, your eyes today Once again bore into me That day I was the prey you sought But today I am armed to my teeth
That gaze is just deception cold It’s so clear, now I can see As back it kicks and ricochets Into the desert of your being.
I hope, I hope That you find Your version of paradise With babbling milky streams Sweetened with honey Dripping from trees There are no bees (They sting you see) In a vaulted other world May it be your vision unfurled
But I have this feeling Visceral, profound This tug of awareness In my gut That the body so righteous And ritual bound Has lost touch With the heart and the spine They lie dormant intertwined In the periphery Of the small intestine
But that’s just me I’m not saintly Not a bit, no not a whit But I have learnt to be a friend I now know how to sit With what lies deep within My spine, my gut and my heart That trio beating a path Clear and bright That despite Myopic eyes I can see and I can ply So I can make this very life My living, breathing paradise
And so I hope that you too At some blessed point Find your heaven as it awaits With its resplendent pearly gates I hope that you Can grasp that thread That quickening, vital line That dangles down Into mosques and synagogues And altars divine Leading you to paradise.
Mahvash Mohtadullah 