Alisha's Secret Gallery

Pictures and poetry by Alisha Sufit

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Death of a Rose

Rose rambled in my wild garden free,
Crowning summer’s glory every year,
But voices of the tidy mind admonished me,
Cut it right back hard in spring I hear.

I could not cut it back, I let it grow,
And blooms that took the viewer’s breath away
Cascaded perfect pink, both high and low,
Celebrating beauty by each day.

Then I grew tired of all the leggy shoots,
And took the knife and cut it back so close,
And shocked the growing plant down to its roots.
I did not see that I had killed the rose.

And in my mind I shed a bitter tear.
The rose turned black and it would bloom no more.
The world turned round and passed another year.
Came empty space where roses grew before.

But now the rose’s hips that once had dropped,
Taking knowledge from the wilder eglantine,
Quite sudden came alive and grew unstopped,
As if to compensate us for what once had been.

And though the glory of the rambling rose is gone,
The fury of its children does survive,
Cascading pink amidst the spiky thorn,
Keeping distant memories alive.

© Alisha Sufit

Drawing: Heart On Your Sleeve   click to enlarge

Drawing: Cold Mountain   click to enlarge

 

Sand of Time

My friend is drowning in the sand,
and we stand by and watch.
Like others, I stretch out a hand,
but there is little we can do.

We talk and laugh,
though weep in hiding,
entertain to pass the time,
while she is slowly sinking down,
to take her mind away from pain
of where this ends,
to help her tarry with the Now.

She half pretends it can’t be so.
A potion must soon be devised
to contradict this fate.
A bird down from the cloud will come
and take her off before it is too late.

The giant sole of time’s foot falls
and shadows all of us at last.
I hear the numbers
called out at the boating lake -
'Come in number 3! Your time is up!'
So helplessly we stand and watch
as the reaper drains her cup.

Still patiently she waits, with dignity and grace.
She’s rarely out of sorts within her mind.
She stares death bravely in the face.
But now a tiny edge of anger has crept in
as she counts the shortening hours
and sees there’s no escape.

The station of departure looms.
Life rules, a titan mocking our small powers.
We’re but a million tiny pawns
destined for a million tombs.

© Alisha Sufit

 

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