Aiman’s dreams of a scented boulevard
diffused and coloured my own
and here i
must walk some evening to lean
against water feed ministries of will with stories of old litanies
still good and reminding of Aiman...shaped with unerased
occupations not told directly
apple-tree ricefields shopfronts lessons to innocence
excursions to hills
or the valleys
of mind camouflaged ghosts
hiding behind dark nights ready to
digest and the shores of suffering
roads clogged with
stories, but then how can he forget
under these minarets, my Aiman tells me, he walked
he remembers his
pride and refuses
to tell me
the name of his
guardians in those days
however, i must tell you, he says, Yusuf took me to my college and
not my father’s friend only but my own
whatever have they fed him all these years, he worries, God knows...but
the fish, Father, of this lake..
where did they go?
What shall he say? his eyes fixed at me
but watching long caravans of people trek across the hills into another,
tents, orders, obedience slogans, fire in eyes
the need to undo
a big wrong
bypassed as a matter
of internal disorder..
what do you do with internal
disorder-no not now-mir kashif
at it again, cut wombs and throw them into fire?
but aiman - he must play his role
he doesnot want to dismay
himself with a mistake not committed once, never done
his faith makes him
quiet (cant you tell from his silence he knows the truth?) at what cost-
does he not see my funeral like that of many others
while neighbours
drink salt-oceans
to no avail
i must go and not ask him
reasons for how too many survived
managed to, afforded to, like they will ask me
Why Did You Forsake Us, Kashif, Why?- I didnt Sameer-
look into me can't you tell the burden we share
from my silence?
But he too must go
and i repeat these
words to myself
like all his dreams burdensome one by one taken on his own lone shoulder
to bury in personal funerals
but they didnt die
Father
we all your children
on all continents
yours and of those
who resemble
our past
inherited your dreams
not askance at the
time's encounter
ready to look into future
through our now
realising
like any other
the treatise of love you write
father and named it so lovingly
kashifnama
we too will write a letter to you once and call it
aimannama
try to complete it
before the time is over.