An Ode to Shahid

“The world is full of paper
Write to me”, Shahid said.
But can I revive you
In mere words?

The broken flowers
That flew down to me from your land
Will they retain
The smell that must have
Lingered on your fingers?

There still lies
An empty cup at my sill
You promised to fill it to the brim
With stories of your winter mornings
I watch it struggle to contain
Droplets of the treacherous sun

An unfamiliar tune
Still meddles my head
From your rusty harmonica
I trapped that moment in a picture
But let you go
Will a letter help me
Get rid of that song in my dreams?

Under my breath
I still whisper in your tongue
Those names you taught me
How do you beckon a lover?
I wrote them over and over
But the door isn’t answered anymore

The stories are undone
The songs unravelled
The flowers, brittle, broken
I did write to you,
As an ode to Shahid
But the mail has lost its way
In the foggy nooks of time
Perhaps memory will show mercy
And rescind the leftover quiet
That renders my mourning
Asunder.