Muezzin Poem by umar nizarudeen

Cut off from the fountains of the earth
I cry out my pain to the heavens
Like vapour, my pain rises
From my heart, which is a furnace.

Surrounded by coconut tree monsters
Minarets, underfed
Sleep through unhappy childhoods.

On mornings, when it is too cold
To pray or not to pray
I rise, man with creaking bones
And find that
The sun, has a flawed personality.
My heart is Muslim.

My life shrinks into me
Like pestilence
And prayer becomes death.
Even the dogs have lost faith in me.
My eyes are Christian.

Over a garden of withered roses
Years implode into seconds
And every second,
An autobiography.

Men come for namaz on Diwali day
With the light of crackers
In their hearts.
My hands are Hindu.

A handful of seeds flung into the courtyard
Pray for forgiveness
By sunlight.
My brain is afraid.

I stare at the sun till I go blind
And my pain spangle the evening sky
Rising, with music
A sigh here and a sigh there
To seed clouds,
Bursting with sunlight.

And I wait, for rains
To come down,
With songs of the heaven.