HIRAETH

BY

MIANGUL SAAD SIKANDER

Daastan Publishing

First Published in Pakistan by Daastan PVT LTD

House # A-41, Madni Street, Lala Rukh, Wah Cantt, Punjab 47040

www.daastan.com

www.meraqissa.com

Text copyrights © Miangul Saad Sikander

Book Design copyright © Miangul Saad Sikander

Edited by: Nayyab Mushtaq

The moral rights of the writer, illustrator and editor have been asserted.

All rights reserved

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN 978-969-696-866-5

For My Mother and Father

In a world of impermanence know that I will stand by your side forevermore. 

FOREWORD

A state of collapse felt in a minute’s hatred. The terror of the tormented thoughts found in reminiscence and a spine-less state of being. A screaming silence that shatters the wilderness of one’s pride but seems indifferent to the strangers veiled eyes…

Maybe it’s the biting cold that opens buried wounds. That makes it easier to hear the breathing and begging of the rib-caged heart. A blood-red thing writhing from within. Burned into the colours of one’s chest. Like a long-lost love that flickered to death, leaving isolation in it’s wake. Or the waving hand of your childhood, drenched in summer-dreams, that died abandoned in the midnights of adulthood.

Perhaps it was there that it began—the abandonment of self.

A wearied light on lonesome loveless years. A young wound bleeding for ages that has almost become tiring to feel. Amongst the cold demeanor of the crowd that you could never appease and underneath cold and sere skies of starless and homeless cries—Autumn lies in the wake of a dying summer.

How do you know when to leave?

When do you decide to not linger in the horror. To not bear it for love or the hope of some distant waves that never came. To still the will and root resolve and spread your aching wings. Trailing the winter-bourne to empyrean garden gates that lead to lands of better days. A solitary search that seeks to lay bare the soul. To taste the freedom so casually enjoyed by the wave and gale. To turn away from the pursuit of wealth and the agony felt over faded beauty. Rather to still the rush of life and root to grow and enjoy such gentle sleep as children know.

Wandering with the wind and allowing the spirit to dance and gain knowledge on paths that stray. Strenghtening the fragility of faith to sow the seeds of the soul’s peace and burning to carve light for others ease.

To light the lanterns and keep searching the wilderness. For oneself—a home made own. And in the silent hour of non-wanting to keep searching and living; art sketched upon a faded canvas of dreams.

A home known in wandering.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1:

1. In a State of Leaving

2. So Soft from Afar

3. The Oaken-fear

4. The Dusk and Dark

5. The Taste of Orange

6. Love is Violence Withheld

7. My House is a Cemetery

8. The Candlestick

9. I Have My Father's Hands

10. To Breathe Borders

11. Homeland

12. Rubies and Pomegranates

13. Aching Again

14. Death is a Distant Dancer

15. The Rib-caged Heart

16. Time on my doorstep

17. The Spirit Flown  

18. Little Things

19. The Muddied Magpie

20. Summer Snow

CHAPTER 2:

21. The Calling Voice of Open Tombs

22. Belladonna! Belladonna!

23. Egyptian Eyes of Azure

24. Buried Underneath the Birch

25. Autumn in the Wake of a Dying Summer 

26. Winter Wind and Gardens Green

27. The Bare Tree Blossomed Green

28. Love Is Kept in the Eyes

29. Little Soaring Seagull

30. Mother Mine! Mother Mine!

CHAPTER 3:

31. Of the Ghosts on the Shore

32. A Dream to Dream

33. The Tale of Sorrow

34. The Burning Cold

35. Little Lilly Lost

36. Haiku #1

37. Rushing River Row

38. Sunlit Leas

39. The Roaming Wind 

40. The Waves

41. Rose of Glass

42. Haiku #2

43. I Know What Pleases Time

44. What Asks the Heart but Peace

45. November Hymns—

46. The Bird on Walking Path

47. Haiku #3

48. A Summer’s Eve

49. The Garden Gate

50. Hiraeth

CHAPTER 1

IN A STATE OF LEAVING

Everything fell apart—

Back into place

As it was in the start.

It seemed all the same—

In the veiled eyes

Of the passer-by who came.

Yet I with my cracks and gaps—

Felt in a minute’s hatred

My own state of collapse.

The non-age hour,

Passed by too soon

Quick as a wilting flower…

The riper years spent

Crawling along

To where the six-pence went.

Frozen blue in this city cold—

Alone with my quite mind

Growing sad as I grew old.

Prisoned on this stoney shore,

Bound by expectations

But the novelty soon wore.

For I cut myself all the time!

Bleeding for others

I never could make mine.

Yet in the silence

Of body and soul

A hope takes presence

And thus, in the dark

I do not stir

But think to embark

Upon a path not yet thought

But dreamt in the passing

Of wants once considered lost.