Love At 34, Hungerford Street Poem by Anam Rizvi

Part I

For a moment this evening, lets stay apart and wonder,
What was it that drew us to choose from the flocks and the crowds?
To know that our feet would click at the same beat,
To know that we would fight, quibble, argue, yes.
Yet when we smiled, we would smile together.

Why did I notice you, another stranger?
How did we know that our eccentricities so queer to others,
Would prove companions to us?
Or did we never know?
Have we walked this road like blind folded fools?
Or, have we been so sure that we would hold hands if dangers ever lurked that we did not care?
Or have we been so much in love that we were not bothered we could not see?
Just as long as were together.

Part II

Hold me for a moment,
A moment, just one more.
One time, one last time,
Oh heaven forbid, be this a last time.

I hear their sirens wailing.
They come close, they come close.
Your eyes are guiltless,
Guiltless as the little swallows that soar in the sky.

Just a moment more dear,
For I know not when next I’ll here this symphony of beats.

They come closer,
Their knells broke us apart,
I lay under the blanket soft,
A tender brush of lips,
Not a word uttered.
It is time.
It is time.

Part III

If I don’t say and can’t say,
If the words that rise like wisps of smoke somewhere in my being,
Never find their way to your ears,
Forgive me.
Such words have not been made,
If they have, I have neither knowledge nor power to use them.

I am condemned today,
Yet innocent in your eyes,
That is all that matters,
To me.

I will be happy in my knowledge,
That a fire warms you.
I touch you, softly, gently,
Where our unborn child lies asleep,
Unknown to this world, and yet a part of this gruesome separation.

Sleep now my dear,
Rest now.

Part IV

Men think they can enter a woman’s life,
Change it completely, fix, strew, plumb and distort,
Our well arranged, scientific existences,
Our emotions, crumpled pieces of paper, dismissed like worn out stubs;
Brushed aside here, kept away there.
How can your spirit give freedom to such unbearable sins?
Your back straight, your chin up, and you’re gone.

I want to hate you for leaving me alone.
You walk away.
You walk away.
When I feel you’ve gone so far I fear no return,
You turn around,
In your eyes I see a spark,
For a moment and it’s gone.
I smile.

Part V

The winds rustle past and the breeze chills my bones,
These wondrous emotions keep me enthralled to suddenly give away to utter despair,
How these long winded sentences, words and syllables come together to fall away once again,
How we love without questioning our innocent love,
We know not why we have faith and yet we do,
How our lives when measured part by part seem so incomplete,
Yet how they fall together, piece by piece to form a perfect whole.
Such is our love.
Such is Our Life.

I pass the days in the hope that the Sun glimpsing through the cold iron bars will
Show me a shadow of you.
Nights whir past in the memories of warm evenings
That we spent together.
That my love and my child are so far away breaks my spirit,
The rising dawn warns me
I will never see another.

Part VI

“Oranges and lemons,
Sold for a penny,
All the school girls are so many…”
Daddy Daddy pick me up
I want to play too.

Daddy, come back!
Where are you going you go Daddy?
Come back Daddy! come back!
Over the vale ran a little girl,
Tears streaming down her soft cheeks.

Her Daddy awoke, Crying in his sleep.

Part VII

The Sun rose.
The creaking wooden bed lay bare,
Meek rays warmed the cold walls,
Yet the Sun stood surprised,
When its rays peeped into an empty prison.

Part VIII

As the fire flickered,
And the kettle sang,
As the sparks ran out to play catch,
They sat together.
“Hush, My baby”, She whispered.
“Sleep now, Daddy’s here”.

“Daddy’s here”
He watched and smiled.
Daddy’s here, right here,
Just like he said he would be.