Two Poems By Sadia Arman

When you went away

When you went away
You could have left an excuse
For a pleasant memory
To miss you by.
The breezy afternoons
On weekend parks,
The restless, active nights
That ended with
The cruel toll of the mobile alarm
On sleepy mornings,
Last minute outbursts
Of unrelenting passion,
the phone-call

To the office to say you can't come-
At least not in the morning.
The typhoons agitated

Within four walls
From a whiff of difference,
The peace that was still made
In the face of a dearth
Of white flags-
Did you have to spoil them all
By your new found repulsion?
Like the seeping rainwater that destroyed
The water paintings of my childhood?

I can find no words
To express what you've left
Of the afternoon gold, the charcoal lines
Of storm and peace.

All is spoiled.
Not even pain is there any more.
And I can find no words anymore
To miss you by.

White Lotus
As the darkling clouds fill the empty valleys with rain
As the mountain streams feed the wild perspiring doe.
So the love of the Lord fills up my gaping pain
So his kindness meets my thirst and cleans my woe.

I was but as a new born star
In the dark and lonesome night
The empty cold of space about me
No other stars shone bright.

From the Heavens to the Earth I fell
To become a lotus white
Into the heart of the valley of love
Sipping the waters bright.

The valley was polluted by the deeds of men
Excrement dirtied the dream
But I sip the love and leave out the waste
As I romance down the stream.