A Day Under The Clouds

She lived once up there.

Water once flew below those thick
Reflective clouds
Clumping high in that
Opaque sky,

Not quite the lashes around the eyes
Of an innocent child –
Soft and understanding
Often flooding
Those narrow chasms
To have the ringing note of drops
Echo the mirth of life.


These clouds spark and shine
Glaringly --
And bounce the rays of light
Around
In a dazing dome
So the land -- flowing like a sea of soil
Glows; dazzling red and harsh –

The heat now scalds the skin --
Assaulted by the relenting rain of
Acid, with no
Sympathy.

The din of the fog of shifting
Dust
Leisurely, and
Pushing, to squeeze like
a bag of
Air granules – challenged
At the depth of sea --
Is incessant, deafening, uncaring.

She flashes her head above
From beneath the shelf of lava rocks ---

A roar of a volcano rises, whips the barren
land.

The sound of agony is the voice of hope.
Somewhere under the ground
Beneath those ores of grave despair --
Trapped miserably – that pocket of water –
Singing the chant of
Loneliness --
And lucid like her deep black eyes,

Waits patiently to glitter
Under the gentle sun of
Daybreak---
And will very soon be unleashed
To deluge those starving pebbles,
And her heart yet again
With the hope of
A brand new life.

-- Fariel Shafee