As Ever by Agha Shahid Ali

Make me weep, Consoler, let blood know its rain.

As Ever

by Agha Shahid Ali

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After Ahmad Faraz

So I’ll regret it. But lead my heart to pain.
Return, if it is just to leave me again.

“Till death do us part.” Come for their sense of us…
For Belief’s sake, let appearances remain.

Let YOU, at Elysian Fields, step off the streetcar–
so my sense of wonder’s made utterly plain.

Not for mine but for the world’s sake come back.
They ask why you left? To whom all must I explain?

I laughed when they said our time was running out–
I stirred the leaves in the tea I’d brewed to drain.

Break your pride, be the Consoler for once–
Bring roses, let my love-illusion remain.

An era’s passed since the luxury of tears–
Make me weep, Consoler, let blood know its rain.

From New York to Andalusia I searched for you–
Lorca, dazzled on your lips, is all of Spain.

“Time, like Love, wears a mask in this story.”
And Love? My blind spot. Piercing me to the brain.

Oh, that my head were waters, mine eyes a fountain
so that I may weep day and night for the slain.

Shouting your name till the last car had disappeared,
how I ran on the platform after your train.

To find her, ’round phantom-wrists I glue bangles–
What worlds she did not break when she left my lane!

Still beguiled with hopes of you, the heart is lit.
To put out this last candle, come, it burns in vain.

Call Me Ishmael Tonight: A Book of Ghazals (W.W Norton & Company, 2004)