Along the muddy torrents in the
winter downpour’s view of old alleyways,
there hides a mosque with a lorn façade

and silly marble tiles burying the yard.
There I want to feel the cool rain on our
soles together, to enter through the arches

into the chamber of two blazing domes,
see the stars of a frozen scheme woven
into flowers brought from past the

netherworld – another lasting dream, Siroun,
and now over its withering, aging eyes, the lids
begin to slowly droop and fall. Perhaps all tire

of too long a life, of loving long, not dying, and
still care to build or leave behind
a name engraved in bricklayed songs,

or like to stretch their moments of farewell,
and leave the traces even of some drizzling
mood in a pensive smile or haunting word.

—
Taimur Khan