Renaissance Through Poetry: A Set of Works by Attiya Khan

Stars

I cannot believe the stars in the sky are

Bigger than earth

Or that the sun is only a mid-size star

That will expand and lose heat until it dies.

This little earth will die in fire only

To be reborn in ice;

Matter never disappears,

Only reforms.

Such a sky makes me understand

The desire to bow before its Creator.

The Quietest Place

After much searching,

I have found the quietest place.

There are no sirens or pipes shifting or

The unbearable creaking of human bones.

The drying leaves crackle like thunder beneath 

Me but I cannot hear them

The forest wails and there is nothing

As though every creature has fallen into slumber

There is only crimson blood in my cheeks;

There is only

You.

An Ode to Paul’s Meadow

Ya Allah

Promise me a heaven like Paul’s Meadow,

Where the green grass ripples like waves 

And dandelions force their presence known

Among creatures more intricate.

Ya Allah 

Promise me a heaven of flowers that

Wrap around my fingertips and beg

“Don’t go- we die only when our

Roots are pulled from the ground.”

Ya Allah

Promise me a heaven of brown leaves that 

Find just as must comfort in death 

As in life, that find no distinction 

Between lovers and enemies.

Ya Allah

Promise me a heaven left to its own disasters,

Where the birds and bugs have taken what they will

And nothing more must be said

For what has been left behind.

Ya Allah 

Promise me a heaven much larger than I,

That need not justify its existence, that

Need not be beautiful just 

So long as it is real

Ya Allah, promise me this heaven;

None other will do. 

As-Salam-Alaikum

I call my father to tell him I cannot do it;

There is no peace in labor and to be kind is a curse!

His breaths stalls and he gathers the few words he can hold.

“This is only your first life.”

I do not understand how this can be

When I have died a hundred times.

I hear his hands shake, and then a sharp sip of tea-

“You have to die a thousand more.”