She’s caught in the rush of hurrying feet Snippets of conversations Of laughter, exclamations She’s caught in a tidal wave Of teeming, streaming life She’s caught in the swell Of people of voices, of sights and smells Riding the vital wave Pushing ahead Her silk scarf catches the breeze Of swelling, surging humanity She feels it pull Floating just a little in front of her She quickens her step Her feet instinctively keeping up With the urgency of life She feels something In her gut, the pit of her stomach A ripple, almost a laugh! She inhales deeply, she can’t place This sudden lightness of being It feels out of place This morning, mourning She had felt like lead Now like vapor she rises up Colourless, clean In that moment she’s someone else Propelling her body like a comet Lighter, brighter almost serene
She arrives at her gate 8A The same number, the place Where this very morning She had buried them She had forgotten For a few moments Who she was She was desolation and grief itself Wearing the bruises of loss Mourning only this morning It all came back dawning As she came to herself As her blood remembered And curdled inside A freezing, heaving cauldron of chills She sank into the depths of her seat 9B There was a sequence Monumental, compelling To her agony She had to remember She couldn’t forget Her world had ended When she had buried her dead.
Life is like a box of chocolates Someone once said Sometimes you get The caramel-drenched centres That melt in the mouth Like liquid satin, swishing on your tongue In silky, sweet tones Caressing your taste buds until Languidly, unhurriedly They lavish one last nectarous kiss Before disappearing In ambrosial bliss Down the tunnel of your throat
At others it’s the bitterness of a centre That’s dark - 90% cacao That unleashes on your tongue Spearing, laughing, spearing again Inflicting a bitter-sweet pain Just enough for you to stop and think To wonder if this is good A revelation Of taste, an experience That’s bold, distinct To recall, to remember when You’re short on inspiration Or whether in fact It is an assault no less On the mundaneness The safeness On your everydayness Plodding on your tongue Like a thug that’s sold His essence, his soul To the gods of gastronomic Absurdity and virulence
I look back, the rhyme is longer For the bitterness that lingers In the mouth; but I have also realized That my taste buds have conspired With my mind to bind Most of the time To memories that are wholesome Sugared, caramelised So even when I pick A chocolate from life’s mix I hope for the sweetness The toffiness, the bliss But I also sit in readiness For the wave of bitterness That sometimes takes me in its grip But always itinerant Shifting, moving on And so I too go on Savouring Every piece, never wavering From the cholocate box of life.
Outside in the garden There’s a Passion flower vine Its little green tendrils Have curled here and there Where the shoots are fullest Lushest, most verdant They burgeon and grow Weaving circles of rapture Until they’ve spun around Seven times Lighting up the chakras of life And then just like that Their work done Of dancing in the sun They fall
Inside the house There’s a woman Her hair Is tied up in a bun She’s on the run With little tendrils escaping At the nape of her neck She’s rushing upstairs There’s a toddler emergency And then she races like the wind Into the kitchen To make breakfast And then she’s on the run again Appointments, to-do lists, errands To complete And then back to cook and clean To feed and coddle, kiss a bruised knee
The hours weave their set design Finite, regimented, organized But she has no sense Of its texture or lines The day is done and finally She sits down for a while Soft tendrils forming At the nape - one, two, three I hold my breath I count the whorls in the curls The longest one has six I look away A little thought flits up to me Unexpectedly, a sign Whispering secrets I don’t want to hear Of endings on the whorl-bearing vine
She smiles at me tiredly I wish, I wish fervently That the curls that gather Loosely around her neck Is just hair soaked in sweat In the labour of love I pray, I pray silently Into the depths of whatever’s out there God, the universe, ethereal energy For the moisture laden curls to weave Their mystical circles for a few more years Until they attest To a life well-lived, joyfully Until they wear their silver-grey majesty Before they finally Unspool in eternal rest.
I wish this verse was more wholesome and whimsical like Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, but that it is not. This is about women determinedly forging on across streets, bazaars, workplaces, government offices, neighbourhoods and communities. This verse is also not so much about the woman hopeful of change (God knows that’s going to take its time in our blessed homeland), but the woman who is stoic and steadfast. It is the woman who goes about her day despite the odds that pull at her body, spirit and soul. It is the woman who dares to bare her true self despite and in fact because society expects otherwise. It is the woman who walks in her neighborhood afraid yet brave. May you find your grit and your grace for the rest of the days of your life.
A resolute, meaningful Women’s Day to all my friends and family 🌺
I wear my track pants And a pink shirt, long It says “Life is a song” I wonder if it’s too loud Stoking thoughts like a gong A shout To the world of men that teams about The streets Eyes peeled For glimpses of variously clad Women that are mad Enough to sidle into the periphery of their sight And special leery gazes Trained like full-throttled tasers On women who dare To bare More than the hand wrist down Or a smidgeon of a toe around Which sits an uncomfortable sandal A Soleful reminder To walk cautiously To always look behind her To shrink as small as she is able So she might pass With a warning glance From the men sitting around Jenetic Judges of right and wrong
For the women who dare To bare There’s a special gaze For their fall from grace From the fraternity that mills about The corners of streets Superior, upright Pissing in plain sight Marking their territories For the women who dare to bare More than the eyes Downcast, demure Vacuous and pure For them there’s the death stare Cutting them down to size I’m one of those Who - Dares - To - Bare The woman within The whole human being Self assured, aware She sits in my eyes Unfaltering, dignified Even as her heart drums inside As she traverses that den Of wolves, dressed as men.
I was lost I took the path Less trodden, I tossed Away the ease Of normalcy I walked away Off the street that carried feet Teeming, streaming busily Easily, its metalled gray Smooth and safe, predictable
I’d felt strong, invincible I walked away Aimlessly, Trail-lessly, No signs, no familiarity I walked I walked Directionless, solitary On and on I walked and walked Until doubts and insecurities Snaked hoary tendrils around me But I walked on until my feet Were bruised and cut Until they bled Until I wept
================================ Until I had forged a road ahead ==================================
It now lies cleaved and gravelly With little grooves Once stained with blood And squelching mud Filled up With wild flowers now Sun dappled through shady boughs The path ahead of me Now gleams with its own lambency
I was lost I left the path oft-trodden, I crossed Into uncharted territory Where the wilderness roamed free Accompanied by the gleam of stars And the warmth of cherished dreams There I carved my own way Hope-hewn, Grit-laden, Endlessly It now stretches out in front of me.
There’s a shop down the street Where you can buy consciences Gentle pin pricks around your heart For when you want to sense something For when you want to feel A tiny paper cut, a delicate weal Most times you buy a numbness though Cloaked in velvety greys and yellows They’re tailor-made to fit around Your never-racing, constant heart And your ever-racing, chasing mind The greater you can muster Put down on the counter The finer the swaddle To enshroud your qualms To feel the vaguest of twinges Of right and wrong When to see and when to be Sightless, without sound Unconscious, uncurious, asleep In the thick, creamy fabric Numbingly, comfortingly bound Gut-driven compass buried deep Six feet below the ice and the snow The tsunamis, the floods and the hurricanes The droughts, the disease, the misery Interred in darkness, entombed underground In the meantime there’s a shop that sells Custom-built, free-of-guilt scruples in town.
She sat there selling bangles Set up in a wicker basket Some laid down on the grass Every now and then she gently Swept off the dust that spread thinly From teeming feet that hurried past Barely slowing near the woman Sitting on her haunches hoping For someone to slow down, to pause Her concave belly almost touching The basket that was tugging The life blood from her womb Every time that she moved Spilling it in little driblets Onto its precious load
The maternal bond of glass and blood Unremitting, never enough As she sat car-caressing Sometimes fretting, sometimes fussing Rearranging, caring, loving Always loving, always loving A tender smile hov-hovering Around her tired mouth She was umbilical-corded To her treasures Resting in their bed of wicker Willing them to cleave their way Into the hearts of passersby Willing them to shine so bright That it brought tears to her eyes The boundless world of plenty In those bangles by her side
Behind her lay two little heads Heat-numbed and stupefied Little thumbs in little mouths Doing their best to pacify The endless hunger in their bellies Matured and rarefied Over lifetimes spent behind Their mother as she hummed Little songs of gentle rain On golden fields of wheat and rye Watching their little sisters Take all their mother’s time Resting in their basket They tinkled and they winked They watched their little sisters Gleaming, laughing in delight Suckling on the joyfulness That streamed from their mother’s eyes.
NB: Image is from the World Wide Web. Artist was not mentioned.
Be still my beating heart It’s only the setting sun With its fiery orange hues Tinged with scarlet and indigo They’re the colours of a day that’s done Be still my beating heart It’s only the setting sun
Be still my racing blood It’s only the ocean wide It’s waves unfurling liquid lace Onto my upturned, sun-warmed face As I leap into the rushing tide Be still my racing blood It’s only the ocean wide
Be still my aching breast It’s only a trail in the greenwood glade Hemmed on the edges with wild flowers Glistening in the wake of a spring shower It’s only the whispering leaf dappled shade Be still my aching breast It’s only a trail in the greenwood glade
Be still my breathless lungs It’s only the afternoon sky With a rainbow that has looped around The azure blueness like a crown A beautiful palette of pastel dyes Be still my breathless lungs It’s only the after-rain sky
Be still my quickening breath It’s only the lover’s first kiss You’ve been on that road before You’ve flown where the eagles soar And also curled up where the earthworms live Be still my quickening breath It’s only the sweetheart’s first kiss
Be still my beating heart It’s only the setting sun The mystical ocean and the greenwood glade The after-rain sky and the lover’s kiss It’s the enchantment that nostalgia has spun Be still my beating heart It’s just life in perpetual thrum.
My thoughts sometimes Become like rebellious kids They dart about my head Swarm into my hippocampus Making me sweat I race after them Calling to them But they don’t heed me They’re chimerical beings Elves and pixies and aliens Coins and marbles and peeling paint A stubbed toe, a tired saint A fierce cupid on a fountain Rose bushes that run riot And then I just lose sight Of them at all I hear the silence Numbing, thrumming, sometimes strumming Through my brain
Then I see them again They’re out on the streets They’ve run free, leaving me behind They’ve escaped the prison of my mind I watch them from afar Tumbling around Laughing, skipping, rumbling around Moaning, groaning, fumbling around Far away from me I’m featherlight now I float above them Like I’m dead The leaden weight of life Has dropped I watch it tumble with my thoughts Rumble, tumble, sometimes stumble In its frantic vitality
I’m timeless, sadless, gladless now E m p t y I float away In a silent conspiracy Of air and nothingness.
She looks at the leaf Its serrated edges holding together A cosmos of possibilities Of alternate realities Of burgeoning opportunities She looks at a vein A cholorophyllated pathway of dreams A vital, verdant, emerald seam Running like a stream From the heart of the leaf to one serrated edge
Nearest To her wrist
Where her own veins have seared a path Specific, stark Chiseled from the magma of predestined fate Pre-blessed, pre-set, per-fected Once a rolling ocean of fluid dreams Now quiet, grief-stained, shadowy seams Of still water that never skips Never dances; it stays gripped Even as it drips In the finite space of one blue-purple vein
Mahvash Mohtadullah - The Roaming Desi 