Lamp of grief

Once you realise sorrow loves you dearly,
you are in for a long-lasting ritual
to crack open a vault of agonies at the end.
Kindling a lamp of grief every evening, 
if you worship a deity, you seek a door to light.
But what are you in for when all the clouds
in the morning sky conspire and grumble
reminding you of a deluge inundating
arts and trees, homes and hearts?
Nothing is meaningless if speech and silence 
fill void, flowing in the same force,
and no one blocks the road to dreaming.
Morning resonates with the evening
as the sky treasures camaraderie with the earth,
streaming down sparkling drops of life.
Thunderstorms and bolts and black clouds scare,
but who cares when inner sparks flare?
All green leaves stirring in the stormy wind
know the language of grief and smile,
bearing the first blow of bolts or hailstorms
or the first stroke of October zephyr.
Someone in the distant hill sings tender notes
constantly waving me with winsome eyes—
I rekindle the lamp of grief with unreal warmth.

Mohammad Shafiqul Islam is a poet, translator, and academic, and a professor in the Department of English at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet. Email: msislam-eng@sust.edu.