(the following is dedicated to the anguish people are going through during COVID-19 in india and to the people of Palestine who, as i write this are being bombed by israel)

the sky has cried its last of tears
and the sun watches its despair~
cremated ashes rise and the earth groans
life gives birth to death

fireworks unrolling  death~
one wonders how a strip of land
can still exist
albeit bombing.
children, women
and sometimes men
crawl out from beneath the rubble~
death rises with the residue of bombing
the sky sweats~

there is a demarcation on earth;
who dies
and who does not:
the allowances are clear
-who kills who is predetermined
somewhere in bullet proof rooms.

stillness fills the moments
between waiting for death

sisyphus in a circular motion

and somewhere the earth trembles
from bearing too much

but

you are made of stardust and God’s own breath
you want to laugh and cry
and break into a thousand and one
meteors
for
life springs from you

and

for you
the sun will rise again
the sky will lift its face and release
the elements to wash your tiredness away
from you life will spring forth
to write another story
and tell the ones that emerge from
your warm womb
of how still you believed
and planted an amaltaas¹ in the
place where they cremated your
own
and
from the remains of a library²
readers will be born
and writers will resurrect~

…

Dee is from lahore. loves old trees, words and surreal nights~

¹Golden shower tree

² https://twitter.com/LalehKhalili/status/1394594143188488202?s=19