Precious words

Precious Words

Even as you avoid me, allow me these words.

If on some path in this small world of ours
Chance or error brings us face to face
Would it not be lovely if, like others do
We too could pause, with all formality, speak a few words.

And what if this occasion of decorous goodwill 
Brings a moment of that lost vulnerability
And a word scratches the memory of a wound
An awkward sentence reawakens a forgotten sorrow.

Come! Abandon the darkness of our silence
Let a smouldering exchange light up our lives!

Let us garland our precious words as flowers are
And let them bloom in our desolate hearts
As we admit that pain is precious as well.
As we accept grief for a blessing as well.

Words are measure, acceptance and expression
Friends in sorrow, enablers of intercession
A treasure too when we have little for the self
The beloved, the lover, when there is nobody else.

Even as you avoid me, allow me these words.

- Zehra Nigah
"Mataa-e-Alfaaz" - from the collection "Shaam ka Pehla Tara