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A Black-veiled Girl Should be Washed With Stars
~ the girl in a black burqa who waits ~
Seen as a mark of oppression, The Veil, Chaddar and Burqa worn by women are often sneered at and reviled not just by the west but also amongst Muslim elite circles which fancy themselves as ‘modern’ and conflate westernization with enlightenment. What is not acknowledged is the fact that there is a living, breathing, flesh and blood person with hopes and fears, dreams and longings, behind the cloth. Just like the rest of us.
I see a girl, slender and aloof in a black Burqa at a bus stop every morning as I drive by. This one’s for her.
A universe unto herself,
a black-veiled girl
should be washed with stars…
Her smile is a treasure
conjured
from seas of her own
geomancing — it’s
hidden well, you will notice.
Innumerable
seasons of wildflowers
(I have heard them swirling)
fill her limpid mantle
with the pollen of a lonely
reticence, in her breast
indigo twilight
feeds on sandalwood…
Like cold wax,
her yesterdays grow opaque
( Ihave seen them congeal )
whilst today
is the hourglass whose
sands sometimes
stand still
in the afternoons.
It is just as well that
tomorrow is hidden,
though by no means uncertain —
come what may, courage
and a thousand grandmothers
walk with her.
Most winter nights,
Grey’s Anatomy
Anna Karenina
Divan-e-Ghalib
fountain pen, notebook
and shelled pine nuts
litter her dreamscapes
