ﭘﺎﭘﺎ ﻣﺎﻣﻮں ﮐﮯ ﻟﯿﮯ

For a whole day
I forgot you

had died.
            I made plans

to visit you,
to drink tea

with condensed milk
& talk T.S. Eliot          

entombed in
the long shadow

of his bright youth.
I remember being

a young boy
in your home

with its iron gates
with a door inset

that rattled
in the Karachi

winds. My life
is now more

than half over.
After I read you

my poems
20 years ago,

I stopped writing
for a decade.

Instead, I did word
puzzles in the mornings

& grew tomatoes
in soil & with water

stolen from innocent
people            forced

from this heartland.
It is not just the distance

between us
that made me

forget. There is
a noise in my mind

that hardens
around me

like cement.
My daughter & son

are one & five.
They play rolling

like two puppies
on the floor. I see

in their life
my own

death – my heart
stopping.         When

they leave me
                        in my grave,

is it then pure
darkness

that covers me
or is it light?