A stone erect said you lie beneath;
the fine soil, swathed in white
but, who bound your blissful youth
to a lonely long home?
My dearest son! My embrace craves for you.
Won’t you fill it again?
A pile of ballads I had,
in praise of your youth and beauty
but they turned them to elegies.
My voice has choked in my throat,
and ruthless moments urge
to chant them loud.
Who’d I sing it to?
They set your cradle on fire,
my hands burnt in hoarding the ashes.
My beloved son, you were yet to part my lap,
though you chose to sleep in a land so infertile.
Can you advise, how’ll a bud bloom
in a barren land?
O, you tyrant death! Go and whisper in his ear –
This Eid, I take his word to come.
I’ll sew a pair of garments for him
gilded in silver and gold.
I’ll decorate the porch, and
pull back the drapes,
and sing the ballads for him again.

‘A gravestone’ is one of the poems in the writer’s upcoming book of poetry, ‘The Cemetery Unnamed’.

Syed Maria Shah