Fading Into Oblivion Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

Beauty has the habit of fading into oblivion,
Lives in legends, frozen in marble, worshipped
In stone. It is the lover's tear, it is a sigh
It fades, and ultimately dies, be it Cleopatra
Or Nefertiti, be it Helen of Troy. Stories
Are made out of its enchanted demise.

You stand still, in half moon, moon turned full,
In the rosy rays of the morning's sun,
By the dusk, in the beginning of the night,
You stand still, to all the flashes and light
To all the kisses, your tresses only fall to vision.
You make the cup end in haunting hangover,
And you sing a silent song. Only you know
The ways of the beloved, your undaunted
Demeanor, it never ages, with every single sight
You bloom, with every wind of autumn, you are
Born again. And again you are born whoever
Amongst the multitude drinks a libation,
To your weathered cheek, and snow clad forehead.

All times, you are there, never shy,
They make you, cut you, live on you, build on you,
You eat them up, you by the horizon's red
Console, the bereaved. Yours is abundance, beyond
Bound. Those who live by your terrestrial rims
On the extended gown of flowery beds, on your sand,
Those to whom the rest of the world is ‘writ large you'.
O innocence of the inhabitants, what a tragic ending
You might have by leaving it, you by the generosity
Only the poor like you, and the wretched like me afford,
You, whose happiness is to imagine, live and laugh
Whose trade is nature, whose living is ‘living heaven'.
My felicitatious heart! Are you fallen in love?
Love, which shall consume you but itself is ever immutable.

-On a night in Sost

Sadiqullah Khan
Sost
December 6,2014.