O Lover!

Let me write a poem beginning with your name,

likewise, the ending will be the same.

But what will be the content if not you as well?

The musk, muse, and the sky, the taste on my lips, the apple of my eyes. 

How do I write you as you are, long enough to kiss the heaven without stretching and sweet as the taste of earth when it just rains? 

You are more than this and all these, drawn up as the clouds in August, bright as the rays of summer. 

Yet, how do I describe my love to you when I put you first and I came second? 

Made you the foremost, the only bird soaring in the sky.

The clouds rain and the earth softens with such gentleness that within your feet Eden evolves and you become the starting point of my forever. 

Gave my name to you and become nameless, gave you the voice and the words, and I came to be that husk of a grain, that slough of a serpent, for you to be the seed that flourishes, the flower that buds. 

I'll go on forever picking the flowers, praising your love upon each but how do I end my count before the world and its things perish? 

This garden that evolved has no starting point and its end is beyond evermore, so I'll stop here with my heart at your mercy, closing with your name, O Lover. 

©️Shaahid Yusuf Ali