"I am chained to the wind.
I am bound to a tree and I hear sap buzzing
up and down, up and down.
It warms me, especially when it snows.
Who was it, I wonder who fettered my ankles?
How foolish, I thought, to never ask.
But when you’re happy, foolishness can be forgiven.
I am chained to a rock.
While songbirds spin a web of bright strains around me, reeds whistle and cataracts of butterflies go about their fragile business.
Laughter of children carries me about and my rock becomes a cloud.
It is love that chains me to a rock.
I said to it, keep me grounded.
And the rock loved me back.
Some days, I am not happy.
The wind sweeps me over calderas of war.
How can it expect me to disown blackened babies far below whose mothers lie still,
eyes turned to opals?
Weep I must, chained to humanity.
How can I disown distant sorrow and silences of death?
They grow into me they become me I exhale them as prayers I become nothing —
it is as it should be.
I am chained to humanity.
The wind smiles.
Generosity of time and hope —
a hoary alchemist whose hands dance to music we can never hear and make balms, which rest a while
on weary warriors then gently turn into vapors and are gone —
their work is done.
Who resets my hourglass when the last grain of sand sinks into oblivion?
I never think to ask,
for I know what comes in last can be the first to be reborn.
I begin to honor every life lost celebrate those yet to be
and that is how I reclaim a transformed heart.
The tree and I, we celebrate for it is a triumph of sorts to forget.
It is autumn and green-gold leaves drop like blessings.
It is time for sap to rest.
Too often we exhaust ourselves for what, I ask the tree.
Its answer is a weary sadness.
The vagabond wind ah, such capriciousness —
tugs me along.
I taste sweet waters of icecaps.
Air is shards of blue icicles which my breath turns liquid and it drips from my thirsty fingers.
The wind’s labors are written in stone.
Brother rock, sister wind.
It often drags me through fields upon fields of red and purple wildflowers
then gardens full of barbs and I say to myself, you are invincible!
You are invincible, Calderas of war forgotten.
When you’re happy, better to not question terrains…
Most days, fragrant light of colors walks with me.
And today,
I saw one sleepy folded flower.
I knew a whole galaxy swirled inside it.
How foolish, I thought to want to own it.
I waited for sunrise.
Imagine if you can, dewdrops in a panicked dance slowly become phantoms…
And together, the sun and I, we set the galaxy free."
Farida Haque
