I'm amazed at how you help me

find a way to save myself

from the empire of emptiness.

What's life if a sense of darkness

doesn't connect night to sunlight,

or twilight doesn't transform grief?

Sometimes we should travel to rocks  

that teach us to have compassion—

their extrinsic roughness just jives. 

Knowing the danger of loneliness,

minds imagine, you dream—

then poetry chooses you forever.

Last night as my heart was bombed,

I felt I was a letter unopened—

the crazy words hit me like bullets.

There'll come a day to pass the word

life isn't meaningless—

at least when you care to tell me

I fill your void with grace.

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