Conversations

He: I'm drunk but may I fall in love with you?
She: Only if you are going to remember being in love with me when you are sober!

'Incident' by Norman MacCaig

I look across the table and think
(fiery with love)
Ask me, go on, ask me
to do something impossible,
something freakishly useless,
something unimaginable and inimitable

Like making a finger break into blossom
or walking for half an hour in twenty minutes
or remembering tomorrow.

I will you to ask it.
But all you say is
Will you give me a cigarette?
And I smile and,
returning to the marvelous world
of possibility
I give you one
with a hand that trembles
with a human trembling.

kashmir

I have always dreamt of you. And the dream was always so real that I almost believed I had extended my hand and held you in between my fingers, that I had sunk my feet in you and that I filled my eyes with your image. You who look like you have just been awakened by a morning sprinkle of virgin white, you soft crisp milky flakes. And with the sun deflecting from you and piercing the gusts of cold, I have no doubt why they call you paradise on earth.

shir chai
kawah
dum-aloo
chaman
Sheermal & Bakherkhani
shikharas
Doongas
Amira Kadal
Jhelum
Old brick buildings
pagoda-like mosques and shrines
Jama Masjid
Hazratbal
Khanqah of Shah Hamadan
rows of poplar trees
fir-covered hillsides
snow-covered mountains
Sindh valley
rice fields,
pine forests.
Here I come!