Dear J.
It should be a letter
To the man inside
I could not become
Dressed in yellow
And green, the colors of spring
So I could leave death
In its chamber veined
With deep ore
I’ve no more to tell you
Last winter I climbed
The mountains of Musoorie
To hear frozen peals of bell and wire
A silver thread of sound
Sky to navel
Draws me
like the black strip
in a flower’s throat
meant to guide you in
I lie now in the winter
open-petaled beneath Sirius
I cereus bloom
Credit
Copyright © 2013 by Kazim Ali. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on April 24, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.
About this Poem
"I was asked by a friend, a poet, what I thought about poetry and to explain why I write poetry. This is the letter I wrote back to him."
Kazim Ali
Date Published
04/24/2013