Daily Times

Let me rub the sleep

that dusts superfluity

from my eyes

under my thumb-nails dies the sparrow

yearning for a brave new Pakistan

at last

with the final squeaks of the parrot

perhaps that day will never be

I have not chest and shoulder

enough

to include all the birthing problems

of this bleeding psyche

but have heart now

to create in this Pakistan

a galvanism to stir

contagious glory from the tattered cob-webs

hung in shreds

in the lonely nooks of our minds

from the paradigmatic personality of the faded

heroes of yesterday

perhaps that day will never be

for our yesteryears Delacroix paints

our todays stand splashed

in infant confusion

in instant chaos

and harbours no promise

of genius

or even sanity.

There must seems be

an ancient Sanskrit curse

over me

but

yet awhile

that great heart of Omar

beats in me

and Ali’s hand holds my sword

perhaps that day will never be

find in my land

openness and brotherhood

and in that lost Islam

a beechen plot to lie in

of mottled pages

while moths wing out.

Standing bow-legged

in the dim corridors of

myopic history

I suck at the lollipops of the past

for reprieve

find tolerance and tenets

of emerald Islam

crying

its now or never

perhaps that day will never be

but perhaps it may

then I change it sure.

The writer is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC

Published in Daily Times, March 26^th 2019.