Friday, March 05, 2021

A Nostalgist's Map of America: Poems

“The man who buries his house in the sand and digs it up again, each evening, learns to put it together quickly and just as quickly to take it apart. My parents sleep like children in the dark. I am too far to hear them breathe”
Agha Shahid Ali, The Veiled Suite: The Collected Poems

 

“The moon touched my shoulder
and I longed for a vanished love”
Agha Shahid Ali, A Nostalgist's Map of America: Poems  

 

“Then why let anything remain
when whatever we loved
turned instantly to stone?”
Agha Shahid Ali, A Nostalgist's Map of America: Poems

“There again is memory
at my doorstep --

jasmine crushed under
departing feet.

The moon extinguishes
its silver pain

on the window.”
Agha Shahid Ali, A Nostalgist's Map of America: Poems 

 

Stationary

The moon did not become the sun.
It just fell on the desert
in great sheets, reams
of silver handmade by you.
The night is your cottage industry now,
the day is your brisk emporium.
The world is full of paper.

Write to me.
Agha Shahid Ali, The Veiled Suite: The Collected Poems  

 

No comments: