Pieta

By Omar Jawed Shaikh

My smooth skin of Carrara stone

A symbol of pain, and love gone

A magnificent sculpture, my eternal bonds

Another year gone, frozen still in time

Frozen in this stone, imprisoned for no crime,

Another alcove in my heart, with the wind it hymn,

In upset eyes a river fruits, held back by this stone bound,

A moan, a scream of agony, a desire for relief that never sound

Desire for Freedom only to wipe his face with my silk gown

Dreams of a Friday, when the sky shall bring freedom with the rain,

For me to feel his skin and hands with soft veins,

To brush his hair, and wash away sand grains,

To weep his name, echoing in these halls again,

The heathen who craft this prison, now basks in praise,

Shall one day too suffer a similar fate

To be carved into stone walls, of an endless maze.

My heart, a box of pain and sorrow that bare the storm,

A mother holds her child, who's blood now free to roam,

Falling on barren soil, where seeds of escape are yet to grow.

By Omar Jawed Shaikh