Passage

Pain travels from bone to bone ––
moon intended for earth stays

on its quest for truth. At the curb
of defiance, she remembers a lark

on one winter night staring into
an owl's eyes; daisies that held

within petals a precarious string
of dew as a sky soaked up land's

bellowing. Her bones shiver off
fireflies forming hives of light

on her skin –– sightless dreams:
mirrors reflecting one heaven

barren from drought of conquest.
She remembers almond groves

and blushing apricots; flowering
for bees allowing their labouring

bodies respite for sustaining
cycles of lives. A cold hunger

looms among a hatch of birds ––
she revels in the mist, for hope

burns like a flame on fire glass.
This river will keep flowing into

weirs of black holes; only in turns
can sun and moon exist together.

She rotates dreams each dawn
on a concept: nothing is gone,

losses minimal as they collect
somewhere in ideation of life ––

that which is after a now –– bright /
unequivocal / true / and existent ––

First published in Kashmir Pen