Remember you asked, “it’s Fall! How is the world blossoming?” early October?
This meadow of mine, carefully tended—crushed again, this October!
So indescribable a presence, manifesting longer than my acute illness:
The darkness that your absence has engulfed mid-October.
Didn’t we walk to the banyan tree, talk of living the dream & all the other dreams,
How must I tell you, how I endured the sleepless October?
And if ever there is forgiveness, it is here; it is now
Why have you extended your mirthless days, your shameful nights, October?
The vendors scream so loud it silences the earth, bodies on sold, eager bargainers,
“Javeria!” on the wet pavement, under a clear sky, in the face of a dissenting October.
Ghazal: October