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 red roses were out In full bloom Riotous, cheerful, swaying in their beds Wearing their full petalled crowns on their heads I looked from afar Day after day As the roses danced and played In the not so far off distance Something was stopping me Something in my heart Was whispering, telling me that these flowers Were best adored from afar I listened and stayed away From that little paradise As it burgeoned with beauty Day after day But one morning when I came out to the garden I felt a lightness of being And so I strayed further afield To that joyful bed of red roses at play
There I looked at the perfect blooms Each one’s heart lay glistening in the sun The petals dancing in unison Around their pulsing cores And then I saw The soil below There strewn in little pools Of red, unravelled - unspooled Lay the fallen petals Fallen … resting … resting … fallen petals Some bruised, some new Some already a part of the earth As she hugged them close, each delicate edge Soaking back into her infinite depths The scene took my breath away Whisking me back to another day Full of bittersweet memories When I’d seen the same petals Strewn where you rested In earth’s boundless embrace.
Mahvash Mohtadullah 