Three new poems in Usawa

Three new poems in Usawa Literary Review's tenth edition (Jan 2024) . One of them, below. 

There was a country we could have been

 

There was a country we could have been

together – utterly shapeless

and well past reform

 

A laughing country with as many sides

as a well-cut diamond – tumbling valleys

of rusty lakes, rivers above,

seas to the right and left

 

The world would look and lust

for this land glistening emerald and sapphire

sitting in the sun rocking

on its heels with night's cool laughter –

How they'd hate us and how they'd long

for our warmth, our knowing, our winking

and getting by

 

If the mist came down real thick

some morning with the blinding rain

with the mountains plush and forest thick

and the bears standing guard

while everyone was busy fighting –

could we be our country yet?

*

 (c) Annie Zaidi

Link to three of my poems in Usawa: https://www.usawa.in/issue-10/poetry-10/there-was-a-country-we-could-have-been-and-other-poems-by-annie-zaidi/