Poems forever
By Walt Whitman
Grand is the seen, the light,
to me–grand are the sky and stars,
Grand is the earth, and grand are lasting time and space,
And grand their laws, so multiform, puzzling,
evolutionary;
But grander far the unseen soul of me,
comprehending, endowing all those,
Lighting the light, the sky and stars, delving the
earth, sailing the sea,
(What were all those, indeed, without thee, unseen soul? of what amount without thee?)
More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, O my soul!
More multiform far–more lasting thou than they.
By Yusra Rehman
The land getting bombed is what I see,
Living in this world, but I want to flee.
The tears rolling down their cheeks,
An end to this is what they seek.
The terror that won’t let them sleep,
The loved ones they want to keep.
The home they built with so much love,
Now lies in ruins from bombs above.
By Ummara Rukhsar
Every Eid, every family function,
every outing,
The noise was ominous,
Deafening,
Even if there was peace,
Even if there was no discord,
The heartbeat was still thunderous.
Perhaps something will go wrong now:
One word,
One phrase,
One wrong step
That will arouse the Angry
Man in the house.
Even in silence, the echo remains.
And so the quiet was never truly safe.
By Abid Agha
On a lonesome, lifeless December afternoon,
I tried to compose notes on my guitar—but failed.
The instrument responded like a stranger I never knew.
I made a cup of coffee and set it aside.
Then, suddenly, a memory surfaced—
another December, a cozy afternoon,
when you took my guitar and began to create tunes.
I still remember: my melodies were less trendy than yours,
but that day, even after trying so hard,
you couldn’t compose a single tune.
Helpless, you turned to me.
I smiled and said, “Let me compose one for you.”
But there was a condition.
You asked, “What is it?”
I replied, “From now on,
every composition I create will bear your name.”
You smiled, your radiant eyes brimming with tears.
That was our last day—we never met again.
I searched for you in every melody,
dedicating each one to you, as promised.
Hundreds of tunes poured from my soul,
but they were met with silence.
Now, as I sit with this guitar once more,
its strings echo only incomplete notes—
like a story half-lived, a love unanswered.
I wonder if, somewhere,
you still hum the tune we never finished.