issue five / mosaic
ELIXIR BY BARD
Ghazal Azad
Stitches of souls, once loved —
such tapestry of a bard’s heart
& to be loved, if there is any proof,
should be in sighting eons as verses.
Bones, long eaten by the earth’s fangs,
the earth inside a word — one becomes.
Breathe in the attar of odes amongst trees,
watch a night flower pay greets to the moon.
Some say, a devotion. Some devotes, a song.
If this isn’t evidence of survival, what’s then?
A gentle hand of love, all along, salved ones.
Somewhere, a couplet rises, turns in its vowels,
& surrenders itself in ashes of jasmine incense.
A crane falls for a daisy. Only I know,
the tenderness laboured through blood.
To —
sit by an open window, calling a name on a breeze
& so brings a smell of beloved’s garden in springs.
To —
etch prayers of a meeting on palms, ink-fingertips
& so touch lips, a hymn born on a beloved’s visit.
A muse — grace of finest, a wound almost a skin.
On pearls of wave, on shade of skies — so lives on.
such tapestry of a bard’s heart
& to be loved, if there is any proof,
should be in sighting eons as verses.
Bones, long eaten by the earth’s fangs,
the earth inside a word — one becomes.
Breathe in the attar of odes amongst trees,
watch a night flower pay greets to the moon.
Some say, a devotion. Some devotes, a song.
If this isn’t evidence of survival, what’s then?
A gentle hand of love, all along, salved ones.
Somewhere, a couplet rises, turns in its vowels,
& surrenders itself in ashes of jasmine incense.
A crane falls for a daisy. Only I know,
the tenderness laboured through blood.
To —
sit by an open window, calling a name on a breeze
& so brings a smell of beloved’s garden in springs.
To —
etch prayers of a meeting on palms, ink-fingertips
& so touch lips, a hymn born on a beloved’s visit.
A muse — grace of finest, a wound almost a skin.
On pearls of wave, on shade of skies — so lives on.
Ghazal Azad is an Asian writer, focusing their works on nature, love and liberation, and their interconnective — something they had learnt from their ancestors. You can find them on twitter or bluesky (@odeonoud)