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Broken Ghazal ---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 |
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Steffen Horstmann was recipient of the Brooklyn Poetry Circle's National Student Award while at the University of Arizona. He has poems and book reviews recently published in Baltimore Review, Blue Fifth Review, Common Ground Review, Contemporary Rhyme, Louisiana Literature, Oyez Review, Texas Poetry Journal, and Tiferet. He lives in Holyoke, Massachusetts. |