The Webbed Ways
Sumera Saleem
May 1, 2021
“The body of fly paints what freedom is,” says the sane.
My wings wired in space and speed,
No buzzing business.
A move through thousands of particles,
Hanging in the air, heavy with carbon breaths,
Though my multiple legs of reality are always
Trapped in a fantastic spider web,
Whose artistic divinity, non-divinity
Design the algorithms, ends and beginnings
For all of us who desire to fly.
Fly when you feel to.
Ends and beginnings, accidents or fate.
For some these are mysteries, and I read these
As the magic of the universe,
Spelled on paper walls where words disappear
When you set your vision globe to read the future with a logic wand,
The dew drops from which meanings roll down on the floor like dice
Who will pick them when my own tiny body is caught
In an altitude of vision, ensnared in a slender film of senses?
Fly when you have to.
You can see here the captured prisoners
Who chased change and followed curiosity as their leader.
If being ensnared is the end of curiosity,
Don’t follow any fly with fire or fame.
Both will arrest you in the worries webbed in silvery shreds
Keep a glow not fire in you,
To spin the soul and resist the grave-curtains of my spider web.
Fly if you still can.
Sumera Saleem is a lecturer in the department of English language and literature, Sargodha University, Sargodha and gold medalist in English literature from the University of the Punjab for the session 2013-15. Her poems have appeared in Tejascovido, Langdon Review published by Tarleton State University, USA, Blue Minaret, Lit Sphere, Surrey Library UK, The Text Journal, The Ghazal Page, Pakistani Literature published by Pakistan Academy of Letters, Word Magazine. A few more are forthcoming in international and national anthologies.
