by Sheikha A.
Pain travels from bone to bone ––
moon intended for earth stays
on its quest for truth. At the curb
of defiance, she remembers a lark
on one winter night staring into
an owl's eyes; daisies that held
within petals a precarious string
of dew as a sky soaked up land's
bellowing. Her bones shiver off
fireflies forming hives of light
on her skin –– sightless dreams:
mirrors reflecting one heaven
barren from drought of conquest.
She remembers almond groves
and blushing apricots; flowering
for bees allowing their labouring
bodies respite for sustaining
cycles of lives. A cold hunger
looms among a hatch of birds ––
she revels in the mist, for hope
burns like a flame on fire glass.
This river will keep flowing into
weirs of black holes; only in turns
can sun and moon exist together.
She rotates dreams each dawn
on a concept: nothing is gone,
losses minimal as they collect
somewhere in ideation of life ––
that which is after a now –– bright /
unequivocal / true / and existent ––
First published in Kashmir Pen