Lily Swarn | Tuesday, 06 July 2021 | Print
Lily Swarn
The one lit by the rickshaw puller at dusk
The fire from twigs gathered all day
And the one playing hopscotch in his starving intestines
The song he hummed to himself Perfumed with the Mahua flowers of his native village
‘Tum bin baalam kachhu na suhaye ‘
It was ablaze with banshee shadows
Mingled with the sweat of his weary brow
A fire song simmering on charcoal amber
Or the ditty sung by the Highland lass
‘My Love is like a Red Red Rose ‘
As she cooked for her sun bleached shepherd
High up in a Scottish Munro
In the leeward side of Ben Nevis
It held a flame in its simple heart
The Aatish of Ishq
Smouldering like an inferno
Belting out ghazals in dreamy sequences
Imagining the warmth of his shoulder
As you lay with your hair in disarray
It had to be a river of fire
Where drowning was the only option
‘Dil ka Kya rang karoon khoon e jigar hone takk ‘
Hideaway, hermitage, haven
Call it what you may
It was an escape route from reality
An oasis to parch my tremulous thirsts
Amidst the pile of dust gathering newspapers
Fading magazines and worm eaten Readers Digests
I foraged for my lost identity in this tiny room
I found a strange solace in its apparent dilapidation
It looked more dog eared and long forgotten
Then my looming fears and guillotined aspirations
The only window, with its hazy, cracked glass
Was a doorway to my rebellious soul
In the perky mountain peaks reflecting snow
I hunted for the lost sheen of my being
Repeating well learnt holy verses by rote
I beseeched for forgiveness for unclear sins
Or broke into a merry jig to a suggestive film song
Perhaps it was the only place I could dare to be myself
The room on the roof was a leitmotif for freedom
A sneaking back into a make believe womb
Curling up into an embryonic state of bliss
A reaching out for the Anhad Nad
Copyright Lily Swarn
Posted 1:43 pm | Tuesday, 06 July 2021
globalpoetandpoetry.com | Faruk Ahmed Roni
