Zain Syed

 

 

I step through wooden house
to revisit that which has escaped me
in times I once thought
would never come.

 

I sit on leather armchair
dozing by the fire
which, though I sparked with flint
and the knife my grandfather gave me,
burns bright on a copy of yesterday's news.
It would seem, as I watch it, wild orange in perfect black,
that which my ancestors had conquered,
stolen from the electric sky,
has finally conquered me.

 

I sleep on cotton bed
under the rough wool my mother
tamed for my crying brother
from the same ram that mocked him.

 

And in my dreams, I too stand tall
high on rocky crag and cairn
looking out into the fog
of the ever coming morning.

 

And it is there,
to the old ways,
which I shall return.