05/12/2022
As we continue to celebrate Heritage Month we’d love to share “Between You and You, a beautiful from the book City of Pearls by !
Sham-e-Ali Nayeem is an Indian Muslim American, whose poetry has appeared in Dusie, Mizna and Apiary. Besides being a mesmerizing poet, she is also an artist and a public interest lawyer.
Check out the link in our profile to hear a beautiful narration of the poem by the author and enjoy!
Between You and You
somewhere on a cliff in the himalayas
you smelled the fragrance
of your own mortality.
found your reflection
in the mud.
honored the way you loved.
the way your heart broke.
how life became living.
became generative,
regenerative magic.
mimicked nature.
experienced itself.
when the boulders lodged
in your spine finally turned to dust,
when you learned
how to stand straight,
when you laid flowers
at the entrance to your womb,
when a thread of light
lit a river through you,
a conduit between
earth's core and infinity,
here, you kissed the middle
of your own palm,
above the life line
below the heart line.
experienced how spirit
rests in colors at the edge of breath, meridians small portals to
no space or time.
stopped longing,
wishing, caring,
became bone, blood, breath,
a heart of four chambers,
in release.
