Four poems by Adeeba Shahid Talukder
Adeeba Shahid Talukder is a Pakistani American poet, singer, and translator of Urdu and Persian poetry. She is the author of What Is Not Beautiful (Glass Poetry Press, 2018) and her book SHAHR-E-JAANAAN: THE CITY OF THE BELOVED (Tupelo Press, 2020), is a winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize. Her poetry has appeared in Poem-A-Day, Gulf Coast, Meridian, The Margins, and elsewhere. A Best of the Net finalist and a Pushcart nominee, Adeeba holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan and is the recipient of an Emerging Poets Fellowship from Poets House.
The Earthen Pot
in these times
God may seem cruel
but if he is moved
and his mirror, limpid,
shatters and
the golden flame of
prayer gives way to darkness
who will carry her across
the surging
river of her sins, her morality
that wants to end her?
If only
she were her own
God, if only
she could sustain
her breath &
reach land if only
she were
cruel
she could
save herself.
Yaman, an Evening Raga
Yaman:
day’s end, bangles darkening.
Yaman:
walks along the Hudson and its parallel mania.
Yaman
the ailment of the heart.
Yaman,
night of beauty and torment.
Yaman,
alchemy of madness.
Yaman,
ascent upon the rungs of stars.
Yaman,
descent with white robe trailing.
Yaman,
the beloved’s lamp-lit gathering.
Yaman,
golden throne of poetry.
Yaman,
the humming center of the universe.
Yaman grieves
in glissandos, collects
like moonlight in a lake.
Yaman skips her resting
note and rises
to a frenzy.
Yaman purifies
the night of sin–see?
She says. In ardor is
witness.
Yaman trembles like lightning,
shivers beneath blankets
the way a prophet
might.
Yaman, sleepless,
trails off in exhaustion, but summons
& extends each note
like a silver thread.
Tell her:
If you are holy,
you must sing into eternity.
Never rest on the tonic, lest
it be your last breath.
Nimrod’s Flame
—after Allama Iqbal and Christopher Lucka’s “Cloud Fish”
in each world a mirror:
clouds, stars,
water in the wake
of movement,
a handful of dust.
your eyes—
dead, black
gape to the end
of sight: glass,
the periphery
of the universe.
look, the sky’s
torn now;
light pours
into your fever—
its depth, its scorn,
its endless
desire.
when asked
to prove your love,
leap out
of your element
into the dark.
Shaam-e-firaaq: The Evening of Separation
—after Charlottesville and Faiz
As we light
the grief of you, watch the night toss,
turn, wake
from its fitful sleep.
We, too, left our homes
with torches: our light, fainter,
like the dawn so faint
we chanted and chanted
and left it behind.