Eulogy

By Maliha Mohsin
One day, we will carve the rocks of the Earth,
mark the smoothness of the snow that carpets
the highest lands and kisses the heavens, and
rub the moist dirt of the bountiful nature with tales-
tales of the adventures that will dictate our lives,
that will smudge the stiches holding our souls together,
that will make one out of what used to be two.
We will lie on the soft sand of the vast beaches
and let our worn out feet be washed by the salty seas.
We will watch the sea beat its magnificence on our hard skin
and rid us of the grime that mask our shrunken souls.
We will climb redwoods and claim our territories on their highest branches
and breathe the celestial air that will swell our souls with their pristine grandeur.
We will, together, suck on the pulp of the same mango
and I will mark the rich brownness of your skin with its sweetness.
We will look into the eyes of the wild beasts
whose growls will reverberate with our trepidation.
My hands clasped in yours, we will conquer the fears
that root us to the falseness of a pitiful system
that drowns the dreams and fogs the souls of billions.
Together, you and I, we will break apart from the billions
and realize our fantasies in the arms of the heavenly nature
whose beckoning stirs the sediments of our conscious being.
I will wade through the fluid crystals of the waterfalls,
let its wetness beautify the marks, dents
and bruises of my body, and release myself from their histories.
You will follow me into the womb of the forests and pick me up
from the soil when its intricacy overwhelms me.
We will make a fire on a vast, desolate and orange desert
and let its embers envelope our embrace and warm us in the chill of the night.
We will breathe its charcoal stained smoke
and fill our lungs with nature’s bursts of rage.
We will leave our trails in every home we build
on every soil and on every barbed fence we throw down.
We will chant in unison with people of every kind
and drain the colors of every nation’s flag, until all that is left
is the echo of a billion heartbeats that pull our united humanities into quavers.
Together, you and I, we will build our own imaginary roofs on our heads
and call this whole world our home where the only marbles and tiles
are bricks, stones, and grains of sands that dictate an unrecognized history
of the forgotten and unaccounted millennia that preceded us.
We will love each other under the warmth of the sun, in the waves of the seas,
in the clouds of smokes, under the orange leaves of the autumn branches,
in the cleansing showers of the thunderous skies.
We will lie on the grass and count the stars till I fall asleep on your chest,
and my only lullaby will be the rhythm of your pulsing heart.
The storms of our lives will never drown us in their catastrophe.
Every time you feel the world crumbling down on you,
I will hold you tight and keep you safe in the sanctuary of my love,
and I will whisper into your ears as I cradle you,
“You are loved, You are loved, You are loved,”
until all you can hear is the enunciation of my emotions in my breaths.
And every time I get frozen in a catatonic fear of finding myself bound
to this transient world and its feeble structures made of insincere dominoes
and lose faith in myself, you will lock me in your safe embrace and whisper,
“You are loved, You are loved, You are loved,”
until all my mind can accommodate in its agony
are the echoes of your silent whispers.
We will hold each other till death and beyond.
There will be no pictures or polaroids of the memories we create
because we will relive them with the pictures we paint with our words.
Our children will live in truth and pray with us in the wild,
and add their own colors to a legacy that only we will know.
We will live with no qualms and resents so that when I’m old
and my lungs are dilapidated, I can still breathe into your ears
and remind you of the chimes of bells we heard as young souls.
We will love and forgive like children, so that every bird we fly among,
every horse we ride upon, every tree we rest beneath can testify
that love was there and that a life full of gratitude was lived.
So that when we lie buried in our graves inches away from each other,
in the confines and serenity of a world far away from the chaos we started out from, and
our bones decay and dissolve into the soft earth with no gravestones reminding the world of us,
we can rest in contention, peace, and devoid of all fears of death, adieus and partings.
So that when I die, I will know that I will lie next to you in the womb of God’s wonders-
away from a people and a culture that will never know stories of our love, or our adventures,
or our dreams and the subsequent efforts to change the world- and all years long
till the end of time and existence, nature’s colors will still shine above our remains.
The snow will melt on the foot of our graves when spring’s warmth seeps in
through the cracks of the forests as God and His creation will remain the only
witnesses to the insurmountable affection we held for each other.
And the nature will exemplify our tales as hummingbirds prance above us,
butterflies crawl out of their cocoons and celebrate their birth with fancy flights,
and trees shower their colors and honeysuckles fall down on us,
while I rest in peace next to you, only you, blanketed by the soil,
shrouded by gratitude to God for a life so blissful, hugged by the warmth of
the Earth’s core, knowing that you are reaching your wide arms out
for me to hold and telling me you still love me, even though we are nothing but
just a part of a forgotten and unknown world anymore.
We will love each other even when we are just grains of decay,
and the quiet world will hold their eulogies for us in the wet air that mourns not our death
but smiles quietly, knowing that love was there and that a life full of gratitude was lived.