Musings
Motion
I glance down at my hand from my place in the sandWhere before I would see a tight circle, a bandof infant fingers demanding andCommanding my ownTo move with you so you needn’t do it aloneTo keep you safe against stumbles and scrapes upon stones,Scratches, bruises,...
Suddenly
Suddenly, you’re five. It crept up on us Like the lines we scratch across the jamb of your door Each time we suspect that in the night You might have grown a little more Remember when…? we sometimes say Thinking back to the way we used to lift you up to the mouth of a...
My hunger is not like your hunger
Mine has wings like a moth fluttering against the shell of a fruit at nightfall Shedding dust into nectar, spilling juices into soil To turn to fruit again...
Sweet Blue Wren
Sweet blue wren, please talk to meYour song at dawn was sadLaments, bereft, and yet you sangWith everything you hadYou sang while swooping, sang while perched, you sang as trees were felledI stand in silence, dumb and burntWhere once your chorus swelledA wind that...
Our Midfielder
It was the nifty footwork that jolted me from sleepOnly half-believing that anyone would be up so early playing footyapart from the serious types,but then I suppose,my bright-eyed charge could be one of those. I turned to your Dad and asked what he thought.Sleepy but...
At the Mosque
I was told that the elders went first. They followed a trail of supplications, uttered year after year In quiet work, in nature’s lulls, in watching the rice pot or babes as they sleep. Subhanallah, alhamdulillah La ilaha illallahu Allahu akbar drifting upwards from...
The Untold Stories of Spring
The best treasures of spring are borne from winter’s keepsakes. At the end of October, I saw you swell, your red breasts growing round and full, whereas before you were as lean as a hieroglyph. I watched you often in the tree tops, where the red berries...