The Veiled Suite: The Collected Poems by Agha Shahid Ali

Author:Agha Shahid Ali
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2009-02-04T04:30:00+00:00

* In South Asia, Interval is the term commonly used for Intermission.

Muharram in Srinagar,* 1992

Death flies in, thin bureaucrat, from the plains—

a one-way passenger, again. The monsoon rains

smash their bangles, like widows, against the mountains.

Our hands disappear. He travels first-class, sipping champagne.

One-way passengers again, the monsoon rains

break their hands. Will ours return, ever, to hold a bouquet?

He travels first-class. Our hands disappear. Sipping champagne,

he goes through the morning schedule for Doomsday:

“Break their hands.” Will ours return with guns, or a bouquet?

Ice hardens its fat near his heart. We’re cut to the brains.

He memorizes, clause by clause, the contract for Doomsday.

We mourn the martyrs of Karbala, our skins torn with chains.

Ice hardens its fat in his heart, and we’re cut to the brains.

Near the ramp colonels wait with garlands by a jeep.

(O mourners, Husain bleeds, tear your skins with chains!)

The plane lands. In the Vale the children are dead, or asleep.

He descends. The colonels salute. A captain starts the jeep.

The Mansion by the lake awaits him with roses. He’s driven

through streets bereft of children: they are dead, not asleep.

O, when will our hands return, if only broken?

The Mansion is white, lit up with roses. He is driven

through streets in which blood flows like Husain’s.

Our hands won’t return to us, not even mutilated, when

Death comes—thin bureaucrat—from the plains.

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