I hear the army truck grumbling
Its engine howling
Dogs on the streets now silent.
I am lonely, suddenly.
I think of the gasoline rainbow the truck may have left in the puddle
Image in the puddle is of a massacre.
Night doesn’t end.
I and the lamb sob.
When I looked up
Sky became paper
I began writing images
With my eyes.
Rain fell in unknown villages
On numbered graves
1, 40, 100
And it is He who sends down rain after you have lost all hope, and unfolds His grace…
Ya Musawwir
The Artist
Will you paint us again?
I hide in the cupboard.
I count.
I am confused and
I think aloud:
This year, should I count afresh?
I scream.
There is no answer.
I scream in Arabic.
My brother, who loves ants, says
Pomegranate tree in the backyard
is unhappy
I remember the old man carved out of wood,
in show case
in the baithak.
at Grandmother’s house
(I only saw Grandmother, in a black and white photo,
my mother—a little girl)
I remember gazing at the polished, chiseled old man
smoking jajeer* behind the glass
For hours I would speak to him
trying to break the melancholic stillness
the objects created
on a lonely sunny afternoon
when elders listened to radio
and took naps.
We, children would tip-toe
on the intricate patterns on carpet
Trying not to tread on a different colour
Tracing red, for example
Till our toes became fingers of the weaver
and
In our hearts we praised the dexterous weaver
as we looked in awe at his dream.
Patterns then dissolved and
colours became transparent
We saw our faces,
our rainbow of threads
in the puddle of dreams
away from
the gasoline rainbow
When they burnt my Grandma’s house,
the old wooden man, my drawing of a mermaid under the carpet,
the Khatmaband** squares, radio,
the Famous Five Series and the elegant Arabic calligraphy
all turned to ash
as I write this I realize,
memories always surface even from the deepest rubbles
like the promise of resurrection
My mind is a trellis
where
the ivy grows
inconsolably
* jajeer: hubble-bubble
** Khatamband: Kashmir’s traditional wood work Khatamband, is an art of making ceiling, by fitting small pieces of wood (preferably walnut or deodar wood) into each other in geometrical patterns.
