Day 19 - Carving - by Imtiaz Dharker

The hazy orange sunrise this morning cast a surreal glow to everything - the yellow bells, the orange day lillies, the red geraniums - all seemed infused with some deeper richer resonance.  Hazy smoke cast wide across the sky, a soft blanket to the heat of summer's day.  It seemed to call for silence, insulation - for curling up with an exotic engulfing book that would carry me off to distant lands.  Like Pakistan maybe, a place I've never been.  Or Scotland.

Imtiaz Dharker was born in Pakistan but grew up in Glasgow, Scotland.  She is an artist, film-maker, author and poet.  I found her poem on the '50 Greatest Modern Love Poems' list.

Here is my spoken version of this poem.
https://soundcloud.com/raindrop-11/carving

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Carving - by Imtiaz Dharker

Others can carve out
their space
in tombs and pyramids.
Our time cannot be trapped
in cages.
Nor hope, nor laughter.
We let the moment rise
like birds and planes and angels
to the sky.
Eternity is this.
Your breath on the window-pane,
living walls with shining eyes.
The surprise of spires,
uncompromising verticals. Knowing
we have been spared
to lift our faces up
for one more day,
into one more sunrise.
Imtiaz Dharker

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