Weaving Poverty

How much courage do you need to think

About my father beyond the Shawls, and the Shikaras;

Beyond the fishermen and the frozen forests;

And the roaring 1990s, and that bloody Jhelum

That ferried the Gods across the mountains;

Once in a blue moon, we visit each other

(Though the soldiers often visit us during CASOs)

And wonder whether the past was our present

Or if the otherwise is true;

We trace our memories as far back

As the black crow’s beak can tell;

It once did caw-caw God’s name and fell;

(Mother says, “Crows grow a beak every century

And perish after the number reaches seven”)

My father weaves exquisite oriental carpets

That grow trees of hope; birds of spring─

As the trees turn into woods and the birds

Travel to the warm zones, the carpet falls down,

Done, on a broker’s shoulder bound to New Delhi;

My father loses track─ his eyes blur and thighs tremor;

“One day”, he says, “I shall own birds and the spring

And gather dew drops in my lawn or rest like a king. 

© Ashaq Hussain Parray