The sun leans against the old city walls,
its light folded in dust and prayer.
Rickshaws hum below like tired insects,
and a hawker calls out the price of guavas—
“Amrod dedh so rupay kilo…”
but to me, his Saraiki accent sounds
like my Nani’s pitch.
like the one she used to sell
Sohan Halwa at the Bohar Gate.
I stir my tea,
steam curling like an Urdu couplet
that forgot its rhyme midway.
Ghalib rests open on my lap,
his words breathing between sips:
“Dil hi to hai na sang-o-khisht, dard se bhar na aaye kyun
Royenge hum hazar baar, koi hamein sataye kyun”
It is only a heart, not stone or brick; why should it not fill with pain?
I shall weep a thousand times over; why should anyone trouble me?
A heavy ache, softened by a slow surrender—
where the brittle walls of the chest finally shatter.
The grief becomes a sacred, quiet right.
And I nod, as if he still watches
from a Haveli window somewhere,
amused by our small tragedies.
A breeze lifts the page,
carrying the scent of rain and roasted corn.
Somewhere, the azaan unthreads the traffic,
and for a moment,
everything pauses
the honking, the heart, the world
just long enough
for poetry to feel like prayer
in the old city walls
of Hazrat Shah Rukn-e-Alam’s shrine.
Bio note:
Hashmi-al-Haseeb Faisal (@denizaydinbey) is a Pakistani poet and multidisciplinary artist of Arab Persian descent, born and raised in Multan. An undergraduate student of Human Nutrition and Dietetics at Bahauddin Zakariya University, he has won multiple national literary competitions in many universities across Pakistan including GCUL, UET, UMT, COMSATS, UOG, KE, FMH, FJMU, and UAF. His work has been featured in The Hemlock Journal, New Lyre Magazine, Pandemonium Journal and Under the Bashō.
