The grass is also like me

It has to unfurl underfoot to fulfill itself

But what does it prove by getting soaked:

A scorching sense of shame

Or the heat of emotion?

The grass is also like me

As soon as it can raise its head

The lawnowner,

Obsessed with flattening it into velvet

Mows it down again.

How you strive and endeavor

To level woman down too!

But neither the earth’s nor woman’s

Desire to manifest life dies.

Take my advice: the idea of making

a footpath was appropriate

Those who cannot bear

the scorching defeat of courage

Are grafted onto the earth.

That’s how to make way for the mighty

But they are merely straw

Not the grass

The grass is really like me.
Kishwar Naheed

**********

The first Prayer of my Elders

From the womb of the night

A tiny ray of light was thus born:

Night uncurled the lovely pink fists of Dawn

Read her palm

Whispered to the morning breeze

And made the dew weep.

A star laughed

Moonlight smiled and went tripping away

Turning on her side, weakly

My mother started, then keenly

She gestured.

A flutter of movement, a whisper:

" Oh! Is it a girl?"

Such deep sadness in that voice God!

The very first which wrote itself onto my hearing

In my very first breaths it stirred

The bitter poison of defeat as I heard

"Oh, it`s a girl!"

"A girl!"

"Is this a girl? Pray for her good fortune, then"

It is still carved into my hearing,

The first prayer of my elders.
Ishrat Afreen