Broken Ghazal "We're inside the fire, looking for the dark." ---Agha Shahid Ali, Nights you leaned above a pond's black mirror, Waiting for the moonlight to etch your face within it. In my dream your shadow advances through a lit corridor, Rushing away to leave no trace within it. I close my eyes & hear your voice---the prayer You'd recite simply to consider the grace within it. The exile reinvents a homeland & discovers His sanctuary, a sacred place within it. I stand like an exclamation mark in a cemetery of snow, Envisioning the shrine of words I'll place within it. In Heaven's vault an immense silence, where you Watched the comets teem & race within it. This is your broken ghazal, fleeting words The wind's breath will encase within it. Shahid, you're inside the fire, searching for the dark--- Having returned to claim a space within it. ©Steffen Horstmann