I am grateful to Mushtaq Bala – the Editor-In-Chief of KASHMIR PEN – for inviting me to publish my work in his newspaper.
Fight
Purple roots cover all trails that go to the foothills.
Veins that the earth pushed to the surface.
I smell lavender.
Your words grow in the breeze like a dough under the whispers of the moon.
For three thousand years, sung by the poets of this land,
the naked shoulder of the mountain reigned in stillness.
The sky made itself invisible into a wooden box where my grandmother kept her rings:
memories of loves that now fit in a small chamber.
The sea and the afternoon’s breaths eclipse the taste of your colors.
The blue that slipped between the same branches of the old poplar tree
stares me in the eyes.
Clouds ossify the fight of the earth against the earth.
Between my palms the body of a thin yellow candle.
I remember walking on a street where children were hungry and had no shoes.
I took my shoes off and wiped my tears with the back of palms.
Under my eyes the skin became red and rough.
I wrote I love you on your left cheek.
I threw all the silver coins I had onto the dust of the street.
They were meant for the dead.
Let them help the living.
I remember your hand caressing the silk of my dress.
I purge all memories except one that belongs to the future.
You and I chanting to the incarnation of love under a tree on the island where I was born.
The island where it is always spring and the earth that does not fight against the earth.
Did I tell you I was born on an island?
This poem will be included in my upcoming poetry collection Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: Love Poems and Poetic Prose.
Fight was published together with If Only … Autumn in the 19, 2020 November edition of KASHMIR PEN.
My poetry collection Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings is available on Amazon here .
Passions featured in San Francisco Book Review
Passions featured in Manhattan Book Review.
@Gabriela Marie Milton
