Tuesday, January 14, 2014
In December 2008, my dear friend Cameron Cross (“Brother Wren”) set my poem “Dirt” to music and made me a first-time songwriter. He’s a shy genius — musical and linguistic among so many other things. I dug it up out of the electronic dirt December 2013 as a result of remembering things I had forgotten. I wrote the poem during my first year living away from home as a student in Chicago. I’m so glad I remembered.
Written by Sahar Ullah
March 11, 2006
I’ve played in dirt
As a sandbox kind of child
Threw and spread it around
The substance
Of my bones
The element from which we come
To return to
Then arise from
Dirt of the earth
Of mud and stones
The elders say
From the beginning
Be certain of your end
And yet we shudder
Fearing the one known
They say—
Salvage every benefit
In every grain of dirt
Reminders of mortality
And an eternal home
So I say–
When digging up the dirt
Make sure to feel it
The contours
On the dark walls
Of my simple home
When digging up the dirt
Smell and note its color
That will shade
And surround me
When I lie alone
Alone in the sandbox
Enclosed and questioned
Mingling in
With the substance
Of my bones
And above all
Every time you feel
See and smell
Sandboxes or dirt
Send me a lamp-like prayer
So I am never alone.
Sahar Ishtiaque Ullah 