Upon A Moor I Await The Sun

By Safa Mahmood

Not a wreath of white in the sky,

so I know it cannot be wintertime,

yet this cloudless sky is still a blue sheen

though its sun is nowhere to be seen.

I wonder where it hid to sleep,

and if it hears the nature weep

for warmth; its remorseful roar

calls for the sun—implores, implores.

It is all right that the sun briefly hides,

for its light still reaches far and wide.

It is just as loved in the bleak,

as much as it is in summer’s peak.

But brown eyes miss their sunlit embers

in the soft sunsets of Septembers,

where they felt most honey-like beautiful

before a sun so indisputable.

And hair longs for the smell of sunshine,

and musers search for sunrise behind skylines,

flowers turn bereft of color,

gardens to fields of death and squalor.

Even the moon has fled in despair

and left us in the darkness scared.

The angels have stopped praying for us;

they know we did not deserve the sun.

By Safa Mahmood