Poem
Shazea Quraishi
STILL LIGHT
STILL LIGHT
STILL LIGHT
You picture your mother as a tree– somehow that makes it easier.
A silver birch, undressing
unhurriedly, as though days were years,
while a fine rain plays
like jazz in her hair. She drops
her fine, white leaves
one by one. Her branches
are almost bare now. See,
how beautiful she is against the darkening sky.
© 2007, Shazea Quraishi
From: I Am Twenty People: A third anthology from the Poetry School
Publisher: Enitharmon, London
From: I Am Twenty People: A third anthology from the Poetry School
Publisher: Enitharmon, London
Shazea Quraishi
(Pakistan, 1964)
Shazea Quraishi is one of a number of younger black and Asian women poets currently gaining ground in UK poetry. In sensual, clear, perfectly measured tones, her poems meet the male gaze with a female voice. Her long poem sequence The Courtesan’s Reply (“a wonderful study of gender and expectation” – Poetry Book Society) is based on the courtesans depicted in Manomohan Ghosh’s translation of Th...
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Poems of Shazea Quraishi
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STILL LIGHT
You picture your mother as a tree– somehow that makes it easier.
A silver birch, undressing
unhurriedly, as though days were years,
while a fine rain plays
like jazz in her hair. She drops
her fine, white leaves
one by one. Her branches
are almost bare now. See,
how beautiful she is against the darkening sky.
From: I Am Twenty People: A third anthology from the Poetry School
STILL LIGHT
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