Friday, March 9, 2012

Write to me

Stationery
Agha Shahid Ali

The moon did not become the sun.
It just fell on the desert
in great sheets, reams
of silver handmade by you.
The night is your cottage industry now,
the day is your brisk emporium.
The world is full of paper.

Write to me.

1 comment:

Rukhiya said...

Wanted to share this poem with you which another friend had shared with me.

Yes, I remember it,
the day I’ll die, I broadcast the crimson,

so long ago of that sky, its spread air,
its rushing dyes, and a piece of earth

bleeding, apart from the shore, as we went
on the day I’ll die, past the guards, and he,

keeper of the world’s last saffron, rowed me
on an island the size of a grave. On

two yards he rowed me into the sunset,
past all pain. On everyone’s lips was news

of my death but only that beloved couplet,
broken, on his:

“If there is a paradise on earth
It is this, it is this, it is this.”
- Agha Shahid Ali

Sometimes I think if it weren't for death, we wouldn't know so many people and so many things. Although all we ever get to know is through death. It makes me wonder why I do not enjoy the idea of knowing that an author or poet I've discovered recently is alive and might, just might, kill all the magic with his living years. Oh, I'm cruel.

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