A wingless bird names a burning night
Skies spark up across the borders of India and Pakistan from May 7, 2025 that has known fear often, yet forgets that a wingless bird flies since the monsoon of 1947.
A wingless bird wipes a canvas
No records nor streaks
To name a burning night.
It eases into the vapours of the earth and sky
A common sky
Dark it was,
It is, here and across —
Sutlej, Ravi, Chenab and Jhelum
Rivers that are homeless,
Run into each others’ arms
“Tell me a rumour, a joke to drown my woes”
Not a bird call like Twitter
Hurry, hurry, your fingers of unknown rage
Shall wake up a neighbour
Faster than a siren
I’m a wingless bird
With fading memory
Of mehfils and ghazals
On terraces, of kites and love bites
Parting in a remorseless hush
Such a monsoon it was, of 1947
That poetry springs again and again
To paint a wall with scars mounted on top of the other
For our sky was not enough,
Blue, then dark, of fear, so known.
I take a flight of your asking,
My end is never to come.
