What will suffice for a true-love knot? Even the rain?
But he has bought grief's lottery, bought even the rain.
"our glosses wanting in this world" "Can you remember?
"Anyone! "when we thought the poets taught" even the rain?
After we died--That was it!--God left us in the dark.
And as we forgot the dark, we forgot even the rain.
Drought was over. Where was I? Drinks were on the house.
For mixers, my love, you'd poured--what?--even the rain.
Of this pear-shaped orange's perfumed twist, I will say:
Extract Vermouth from the bergamot, even the rain.
How did the Enemy love you--with earth? air? and fire?
He held just one thing back till he got even: the rain.
This is God's site for a new house of executions?
You swear by the Bible, Despot, even the rain?
After the bones--those flowers--this was found in the urn:
The lost river, ashes from the ghat, even the rain.
What was I to prophesy if not the end of the world?
A salt pillar for the lonely lot, even the rain.
Agha Shahid Ali
In the tug of life, whenever pain has strived;
Whenever sadness became a way of life;
Whenever I lay all trampled and poured down outright, a lesson for self, came by.
Why do you fear what you fear my friend?
In this eternal silence echoes the chafe of those drifted winds;
It has come about a little for me, a little for you,
With a little sunshine, a little dew;
Barely bliss, often time’s blue,
Poised in our lives that gruellingly it ever shows through;
Then why do I go on to dirge on what has already swung?
But now I know;
For every moment has something new,
Something to cherish, for yes! It’s indeed true,
The clock of life is ticking; the wind of change is blowing;
You and I are flowing and we must keep going.
And no longer must it go on showing,
Wipe those smears, come off those claws;
For it isn’t where we must pause!
-Ahana Sood
