Lahore in Yearning

After Ghulam Farid

Everything is airborne
in this strange city
whose dead ends
and crossroads
fall through the sieve
of my mind.

In the tamarind tree,
swallowtails tumble dizzily
like petals of peonies,
parakeet couples
flash emerald axillar
in a grand swooping.

I remember soft jade hills
rising from the river’s banks,
an egret chasing its mate,
east to west, white wings whirling.

My beloved lives in that land long lost
to blood and ink and mazhab.

Who will turn my aching skin to feathers?

～
mazhab: religion