Without a Title

From its sheer absence
from the desert land and scrub
we infer all likelihoods;
of that anguished flower not seen
but desired endlessly.
It just may—
it could well blossom
round the far hill, over there.
                       People around me
tell me it is not known to be;
only daydreamers mumble like that—
perhaps, as if, if only, just as well.

And it happens out there when it happens.
The vases in the livingroom must wait.
The news would flash in
like a bough dancing in the wind.

Watching the news I think to myself:
What is one to make of the real,
say, the ocean-blue doormat
to clean one’s work-shoes on; this turbulence,
as colonial armies move again
into the Persian Gulf
and they all plan to burn down each other’s cities.

I shuffle my feet only
to see it is not a field commander’s map;
only the pattern of Persia in its namesake rug
where the lines are careful; the tree-branches with birds
so delicate they shudder, not sing.
The Euphrates would change its colour yet again.
No sea-battles or camouflaged
affronts to the definite blue,
whose comfort now is the only comfort.

Or, there are the hardy summer flowers
which stick out the day’s lightglass end.

Love, as you appear in the mind’s eye,
I think despite—
it’s possible, after all, perhaps.

From Sun and Moon and Other Poems by Alamgir Hashmi, 1992