by Nosheen Irfan

Midnight Reveries

Bitter night steals into the consciousness
Sows the seeds of dread
The trees become huge giants
Wind sobs inconsolably

The heart shudders at the distant bark
Followed by the watchman’s whistle
Trailing through the darkness
Unto my waiting ears

The moon is up there smiling bright
Its roundness tells me it would stay
While I recall the old days
Far into the night

The chatter, the laughter, the din
Sounds from the far-off lands
Awakened and alive within the memory
Playing upon the heart’s strings

Thoughts gather one by one
Into a mound of sand and dust
With the daylight it would fall
My house of midnight reveries.

Nostalgia

My heart is not at home
This place wears a new veneer
Made of plastic, powder and paint
Unlike the smiling Sunday face

The old smells are vying for some space
Among the remains of what was known
Defeated by the automobiles’ fumes
That wind upwards and down the lanes

Human cries are lost in the metallic roar
The faces are scorched by the pitiless rays
The poplar, the mulberry, the orchid
All are gone, making way for more concrete

The stars are dimmed, the moon less luminescent
The vision of man has lost the spark
The imagination has forgotten its flight
Machines are real, all else fades

In reminiscence, I take a walk
Down the lane, my feet on the shadows
Of trees that circle the green pasture
And house the singing birds
I’m one with the blue sky
I’m one with the silver rain
I’m at home here
I’m at home here.

The Autumn Path

The path was yellow from autumn
Fallen leaves lay under our feet
We hopped up and down
To make the leaves moan louder
To revel in their pain
Strewn, to the end, with desertion
The path was still open to wanderers
Stamping of feet, the crunch of leaves
The snatches of laughter wafted along the wind

The path was wide and long
Narrowed far up where it merged
With the woods thick and deep
Trees ran along, shading it well
Their heads met halfway up
To form an arbor of sorts
A refuge it was
For our playful sight
From the mother’s shrill calling
From the homework and the chastising

The path is still there
A little more deserted, of human feet
Its unpaved ground covered more by leaves
Stretched beyond the vision dimmed by
Years and years of sand and dust in the eyes
From one end to the other, a heap of leaves
A perpetual autumn, a foggy dream.

Editor’s Note on Midnight Reveeries & Other Poems

Midnight Reveries & Other Poems is not Nosheen Irfan’s first publication in Eastlit. The following pieces of work have appeared in earlier Eastlit issues:

• Forgotten & Once there was a Garden were published in Eastlit August 2015.