A Home Left Behind Poem by Istabraq Al Ahmadi

Leaving home behind
against one's will
is no thing but leaving
one's own self
with no prospect of return.
leaving home behind
with mother's fingerprints,
kisses and memories
being divided among ghosts,
shadows, absence and loss,
and hang over the walls dangling
like candles turned upside down
to catch fire at both ends.
like icicles in a wintry day
when a lover's teardrops cling
to the eyelids and swing
like bats or berries at dusk
or fall like a fly in a spider's web
that is tired of waiting
between the hazy sky,
the grey carpet of grass below
with its frost laden blades
that open like a colossal
furnace of silence
to recieve laughter and singing
that once filled the corners all
where a love story was scratched
and veins drawn in the bricks.

Leaving home behind
is leaving the garden
and the flowers with their scent
that with the redness
of a beloved's cheeks
and the whiteness of a mother's prayer
gave birth to the air Adam
breathed before the fall
once but not for all.
Alas! every thing shrank
and lost color.
with grief lungs were filled
with tears cheeks are furrowed.

Leaving home behind,
like leaving a mother's womb,
is to be left with no choice
but to be left alone
like a tree in a wide, wide desert
burdened by the tears
and the years
with no one to take notice of
or seek shade under
with no one to convince the roots
to feel at home
and to stop waiting for the dew
of the dawn, and the greeness
of what it means to be a tree
for the wind will blow
again and again
to carry its winged leaves,
after they give up and send
their breathes and wishes
to the seeds in their resting place
under a skeleton-like heap
of memories lost and dreams unfulfilled
to bring a life renewed by death.