“Black Solitude”

Black Solitude

Tall against the blue a tilted column
Of white smoke; tentative dives
Of rooks, immensity of light.
It is a sky without reminiscences,
Without a cloud.

Anonymous light upon the yellow
Harvest—field on field of ripeness,
Removed and immobile. Far above them
A sky, withdrawn—a deepening azure
Beyond sound and silence.

The harvest waits, the colors whiten
Like things long lost, faded and forgiven,
As is each moment—blind and sensational—
A point of vision, so to see, entirely
A rush of darkness.

—

This poem was published originally fifty years ago, in the Winter 1965-66 issue of Poetry Northwest.

The author’s bio from that issue—written by Carolyn Kizer—reads: M. Salim-ur-rahman lives in Lahore where he edits a literary magazine in Urdu. He has recently published a translation of the Odyssey into Urdu, which has received wide critical acclaim. At present he is industriously and eloquently translating contemporary Urdu poetry into English for a special issue of this magazine.