Where have all the flowers gone?

Author: Akbar Ahmed

If there was an iron-tongued

flame

that is spent today

if there were damascened sunsets

ablaze

they are moth-faded now

if there was colour on my cheek

aglow

and love in my heart

afire

that is in the past-now

the phthisic routine;

again and anon;

to exist

as torpid as the days inane patterns

on

a skeletal schedule

without you

and there will always be

darkness at noon.

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

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