I have lost the rituals Of faith. But my devotion has Become stronger. I no longer Am afraid or confused by questions that Whirl around in my head Never to be brought into existence Their very substance damning Pounding, hammering a path to (h)elsewhere I now wear a cloak around My shoulders. It holds a super power A texture all its own. When I’m alone It reminds me of who I am It fosters my introspection It champions who I want to be And then I feel No other burden of pretense Or suspense No fear of consequence For being so much more And ritualizing less I have no dire need to find my Hallowed steed to gallop on with Me holding on, bound for paradise This life, this blessed life is mine To treat with such passion Such tenderness, that earth Our beautiful earth Itself becomes the Eden I seek My paradise is under my own feet.
How long has it gone on for? I have lost count of the days and the months And the number of times Facts and fiction have been combined Made to stand hand in hand By the gentiles that stain these lands Caricaturizing, miming scenes Of zealotry and genocide
I have lost count Of the number of hospitals bombed Ruins atop tunnels where the Khamas abound And the aid workers killed Unidentified dangrerous women and men And the journalists sniped With their arsenal of 1984 daggers and knives And the doctors shot With nitroglycerin bombs hidden in their surgical gowns And the men raped in prisons With propagandist lore stuffed up their intestines And the women maimed Their bellies heavy with terrorist babes And the children killed Starved and stilled Their sinful blood spilled On the promised land
How long before this evil doth cease How long before the chosen ones can finally live in peace?
Blamed again and again for massacres We have no clue of, our proxy war Of 40 years ago is still biting us in the bum ‘Fo-Fum - this beast at least Does not have the bite of the ‘other-man’ With its depraved ideology Hijacking faith and humanity Bankrolling them into human bombs Boom! There goes another one Creating martyrs of civilians We protest, we didn’t do it They say we did, you see Another ethos, dark and evil has floated in upon the sea And so they insist it is us Nurturing terrorists underground and above Guns blazing, egos inflating Up up to the constellation Of ISRO satellites
But what is this?
3, 4, 5, 6 jets down - not ours We shook them right out of their stars - their 5 out of 5 on Amazon Now they’re raging like bulls in a ring We’re meme-ing and gif-ing like comedy kings I’m laughing at both A little harder at the misplaced ire Full of apocalyptic brimstone and fire
But here it is
War is not what any of us need Good sense, forebearance, lucidity Is the need of the hour and I want to believe In this ideology even as I Pin a little pin of green and white Crescent moon and star shining bright Onto my beating heart full of pride
Because when all’s said and done
Between neighbours who live side by side Sharing a culture old as time Huddled albeit over our nuclear buttons War really is just not an option.
The goddess of the hunt is asleep She does not walk tonight Not a leaf nor a cat, a branch or a bat Is awake or stirring outside
But there are nights and even days When the woodland is alive With the whip and whoosh and the ta-zing Of her powerful arrows in flight
Artemis protects women and girls And animals with hooves and wings It is true, that she hunts them too The animals, not the human beings!
She also has healing powers The flu, measles or the mumps Don’t have a chance when she’s around She’ll pull you right out of the dumps
She is the goddess of nighttime Of nature, moonlight and dew She can transform into any creature She can turn you into one too!
With her silver bow she is just grand A huntress like her is rare She never ever misses her mark Be it a mean wizard or a hare
Sometimes Artemis spends time with her twin Apollo the god of music and light The woods are filled with laughter and song And barbecues through the night.
We have all, at some time or another been overwhelmed, overpowered, bested by our grief, anxiety and wretchedness. At those times, some of us have also been lucky enough to have that one place where we have, for a while, found some degree of quietude and peace. This is a tribute to those secret little places and spaces of comfort and healing in our lives.
There is this wooden bench I like It’s not fancy, quite the common type Cloaked in by the dappled canopy Of a gracefully pirouetting Mara tree It sits in the park like a dear old friend Its well-worn embrace ever welcoming A young couple walks up, caught in the grips of wrath Love is lost, it’s the wretched aftermath Words are exchanged until the fury’s spent Frustration - Anxiety - Sadness - Silence Then they sit downon the wooden bench … Slowly muscles relax and nerves untense Even if it is a passing interlude Loads are lightened, hearts are soothed.
Wild flowers grow lushly around its feet Bobbing bright heads to earth’s vital beat The bench sits there like a quiet friend It’s well-worn seat ever welcoming A man sits down in a state of unease Holding on to his hat in an errant breeze He picks up his phone and looks at the screen The unlit glass reflects the tranquil scene … He looks up and around him his brow somewhat eased Fleeting albeit, he’s found his moment of peace.
Songful birds and their terrestrial friends Roam warbling and chittering around the bench Hoping for a serendipitously fallen treat They browse busily around the seat A wheelchair-bound man looks up at an overcast sky His female companion already has water in her eyes They sit side by side in worlds of their own Reminiscence weighs heavy of days that are gone A mynah trills as a light drizzle falls And a sweet petrichor briefly dispels the pall … The man looks at her, takes her hand and she smiles For now they’re alright, tomorrow is still a while.
I too have sat in nature’s restoring arms On that bench where she weaves her alchemical charms I too have unburdened my hopes and my fears I too have laid my bursting heart bare And I have heard her soothing murmurs That have quietened my deepest despair I’ve looked into her soft eyes from that corner in the park For a time, my soul too has emerged from the dark … The clouds have parted, the sun has shone through And I’ve breathed more easily, sitting on that wooden pew.
I wake up today There’s a keening in my heart It sits there familiarly Waiting for me To take its hand and walk with it Feel its ardor, talk to it Make it wholly, soully mine
But the lethargy that is life Has been pulling for a while At my seams, they’ve come undone I cannot find it in me now To acknowledge this someone This something that looks at me With glowing eyes, dark and deep
I stay aware of it But like a balm I keep it topical Let it rouse me for a while With dreams of higher things Dire things, of touching lives Even a few, maybe just two Or even just one …
But now I have also learnt To preserve myself That strain of goodness Stands no chance In the dulling sludge of circumstance And a will that’s willowy Bendable, collapsible And so when it stares at me A cosmos of possibilities I look away But I stay aware Of its unsettling symmetry
It’s easier this way As the days spill Into each other Unremarkable I tell myself at least I’m not Doing anything to hurt the lot Humankind, neighbours, the child Snotty-nosed running wild In the streets where a mother sits On the pavement resigned Circled by dead dreams and things Spaces that once gleamed with hope And all the while I tell myself At least my intentions are good.
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.
The blue-purple sky today Has spent its moisture-ladenness It is now cloaked in quietness Its sadness it has put away In some clouded corner that Will hold it, hide it tenderly For now it wears a lighter heart Star-smeared, it now gleams Wetly with nostalgia A tender melancholia I look at it as it glimmers Stalwart in its eternalness Its timelessness, its ceaselessness I yearn for that serenity That noiselessness, that peacefulness I take in a ragged breath All my grief sits in my chest Heaving, cleaving achingly Endlessly, relentlessly I look at the resolute sky At its crush of dewy stars Valiantly twinkling at me And I look away Tonight I don’t feel brave enough To let the shimmering cloak of night Take me into its embrace Away, away from my sad place. It moved its glutted grief today The sorrowing, water-laden sky And I have in my wretchedness Made it my own this starry night.
If I could live another life with you I’d talk of a few more things More palpably, more honestly with you Of things that gnawed At my mind; at the way my gut wrenched Balling up inside, or even when The pit of my belly dissolved In a fluttering crush of butterflies I’d speak of love light-footed and pure The kind that knocks you to the floor And the next instant pins shimmering wings On your tingling spine so you can fly High high, breath-catchingly high!
I’d talk of heartbreaks too That shred the organs into little bits Where the pain ripples in screaming peals My thoughts marking time with the cacophony Where I stumble on my own feet Where I want to just lie down and feel Nothing for a while I’d share secrets that I have held deep inside Now frozen, frigid, petrified Mute scars of speechless agonies Never named, never identified
I’d also tell you that I loved My quiet, my solitude When it was just me in my room Or just you and me Sipping tea In the lounge, watching tv And then I’d tell you about the things That would make my tone-deaf heart sing A constant humming underneath Beneath the sheath of my skin Of peace that was soothing, softening Of flame-bright hope and quiet joy
I’d talk to you Of beginnings and of endings too Some tragic some tender Of sometimes going under But always re-surfacing, I would Talk of spirituality, the ethereal kind That makes the hair stand on end The kind that quickens your breath That makes life and even death A fleeting, splendorous enterprise A mystical trip with no finish line
And when your time here or mine Was drawing to a close Together we would Strum those notes One last time Of all the things that we’d talked about And all the times that we had spent And then I’d have held your hand in mine We would have laughed and we would have cried And we would have laughed again Because nothing would have been left Unsaid, unfelt at the end.
Oh look at that beautiful dragonfly It’s turning somersaults Its peacock coloured gossamer wings Perfect, without fault! But you didn’t catch the fleeting glimpse It bestowed upon this scene You were on your phone lost in Digital worlds upon your screen
Did you see that butterfly Just sit upon my arm Brown and orange-yellow wings It was full of golden charm! You missed its quickening beauty As it said hello and went You were caught in your own loop Eyes down, heart still, head bent
I had to hold my breath there That scene was so sublime The grand eagle swooping down And then soaring back up high! Where, where? you ask me now As you look at an empty sky You were fretting, agitating As nature sprang her wondrous surprise
Glittering dragonflies, murmurations Eagles in majestic flight A shower of blossoms, a ladybird loveliness Nature exulting in life Magical, mystical, shimmering marvels Surround us at all times Some of us get to revel in their beauty Some stay trapped by Sentinel Time
Mahvash Mohtadullah 