A Love (La Isla Flamenco) Poem by Ahmad Shiddiqi

(dedicated to Ms. Chitra Lele, a poet friend at poemhunter)

I have been thinking
All night long
Now I am exhausted
What are you, Love? , I whisper

But there is only the mango tree
Rustling in a dream
The heart is very sublime
Very subtle and calm

On your diary book
The moonlight shines in
On your smiles and laughs
Just circle around

But you are not there
Then I am wandering
I am searching
Where are you, Love?

I go about exploring
O wondrous sweet and fair!
Then I touch you
Standing under a silvery canopy

With a basket of lilies on your arm
A bouquet of hope in your heart
You are kind, like bird
And you talk to me

I hear the Cleveland Orchestra
Playing gorgeous tunes
You tell me that
Sunflowers need spraying

That the rhinos
Have overrun all wounds
That the blue roses
Should be cut back and rounded

You say to me these things
O, beauty from the light heat!
Wait, wonderful Love!
And shuns to have her graces spied

But I feel you, heart of virgin
Innocent heart-grow of polished pure
Flowing gracefully beneath
The green steeples of the Nomad land

And I long to kneel instantly at your wish
While all about us voice tenderly
Sweet Ode Songs of Henry Purcell’s
O Love, where are you guiding me to?