Introducing
Sheikha A

 

Cliff tops

 

There are dreams in feet
only just fit into shoes to walk;

dragons with open beaks
circumambulate the ruby crystal

skies, his innocent eyes have seen
deeper shades of rivers flow out

of islands, his mouth has eaten
splinters of a wall that weeps
tearless screams;

they brought dreams
of peaceful colours,

the same colour of the cloth
placed over his father – his mother
called the fabric of heaven;

they brought food –

shelter to the naked space
of fields still ingesting drought
in their hubris mouths;

they brought tents,
they brought music of bonfires,
they brought books and pens,

but they never stayed longer;

his mother said angels had to look
after the whole world,

like his father who was now looking
after someone else, most of all,

to him, the dragons brought hope
of glimpsing his father fly over cliffs

to neighbours across the sky –
that his mother called: the realm
of the lesser protected.

 

 

 

Kotri Bridge

 

the soil is grey here
as the stones sit over it
tall, boulder-like, smooth
lustres of black

 

my father looks at them
quickly slipping into reverie
of his days of owning
a land of depressing
beauty such as this

 

the water runs in gushes
so white, contrasting sharply
with his beard, the white of
which turned sour

 

but I’ve been writing these
lines in a hundred ways
already, I can’t revive them
to the feeling first surged

 

upon seeing the grey of my
father’s dreaming turn
the dusty brown like they were –
the eyes of youth

 

 

 

Paper Windmill

 

certain days don’t go back
to the four folds, but hang
around the contours, set in
from turning halves
into reparable halves

 

the air has been propped
on a stalk of bamboo
and the breathing is done
through a straw of hay
from a scarecrow’s hat

 

I’ve been wearing that hat
over my face, letting the air
assuage the sound of faint
music floating on a bear’s
back pawing on the crops

 

the evening looks ransacked
by a bundle of stars inflamed
from being stalked out of holes
while the paper moves in four
angles – four points of direction

 

 

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