Nabina Das" />
  • ABOUT
  • PRINT
  • PRAISE
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • OPENINGS
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • CONTACT
The Missing Slate - For the discerning reader
  • HOME
  • Magazine
  • In This Issue
  • Literature
    • Billy Luck
      Billy Luck
    • To the Depths
      To the Depths
    • Dearly Departed
      Dearly Departed
    • Fiction
    • Poetry
  • Arts AND Culture
    • Tramontane
      Tramontane
    • Blade Runner 2049
      Blade Runner 2049
    • Loving Vincent
      Loving Vincent
    • The Critics
      • FILM
      • BOOKS
      • TELEVISION
    • SPOTLIGHT
    • SPECIAL FEATURES
  • ESSAYS
    • A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
      A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
    • Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
      Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
    • Nature and Self
      Nature and Self
    • ARTICLES
    • COMMENTARY
    • Narrative Nonfiction
  • CONTESTS
    • Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
    • PUSHCART 2013
    • PUSHCART 2014
Literature, PoetryMay 15, 2016

Forever-rain

But we love rain - Diptych, by Rabeya Jalil. Image courtesy of ArtChowk Gallery

But we love rain – Diptych, by Rabeya Jalil. Image courtesy of ArtChowk Gallery.

Once the heat climbed down and clouds cooled the rally, they prayed: O forever-rain!
What no one saw is how the festoons fluttered to shreds as though drops in forever-rain.

The mailboxes don’t paint themselves red anymore. But why? Pallid in negligence they wait
That’s the answer that caught lovers unawares — no letters written — awash in forever-rain.

To the east there is the sun’s home, from where we crawl diurnally to reach our little goals
True, summer holds us captive, our fruits and farms from overflowing, until there’s forever-rain.

When we were strangers — remember? — it was bliss because I didn’t need much to imagine
And now? We don’t meet — having met a few and futile times — but discuss only a forever-rain.

Che on Lee tee shirts, Ambedkar on RSS billboards, revolution on social media trolling us by
Tell me where trees go to rot, rivers migrate, farmers commit suicide for lack of forever-rain?

Yes, of course it’s a travesty when you want to hear me sing, and my words seem to lack fire —
For love to come dropping in slowly, Navi, if not in the sun, you’ll have to soak in forever-rain.

 

Nabina Das is the author of two fiction books and two poetry collections. The short story collection ‘The House of Twining Roses: Stories of the Mapped and the Unmapped’ (2014) has been critically acclaimed. Her debut novel ‘Footprints in the Bajra’ (2010) was long-listed in the Vodafone Crossword Book Award 2011. Nabina’s debut poetry collection ‘Blue Vessel’ (2012) was cited as one of the best poetry books of the year while her most recent volume ‘Into the Migrant City (2013-14)’ was cited as one of the top 11 poetry reads of 2014.

Tags

ghazalsNabina Daspoetryweekend poem

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous articleArtificial Islands
Next articleWalk in the Woods

You may also like

Billy Luck

To the Depths

Dearly Departed

Ad

In the Magazine

A Word from the Editor

Don’t cry like a girl. Be a (wo)man.

Why holding up the women in our lives can help build a nation, in place of tearing it down.

Literature

This House is an African House

"This house is an African house./ This your body is an African woman’s body..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

Shoots

"Sapling legs bend smoothly, power foot in place,/ her back, parallel to solid ground,/ makes her torso a table of support..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

A Dry Season Doctor in West Africa

"She presses her toes together. I will never marry, she says. Jamais dans cette vie! Where can I find a man like you?" By...

In the Issue

Property of a Sorceress

"She died under mango trees, under kola nut/ and avocado trees, her nose pressed to their roots,/ her hands buried in dead leaves, her...

Literature

What Took Us to War

"What took us to war has again begun,/ and what took us to war/ has opened its wide mouth/ again to confuse us." By...

Literature

Sometimes, I Close My Eyes

"sometimes, this is the way of the world,/ the simple, ordinary world, where things are/ sometimes too ordinary to matter. Sometimes,/ I close my...

Literature

Quarter to War

"The footfalls fading from the streets/ The trees departing from the avenues/ The sweat evaporating from the skin..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Literature

Transgendered

"Lagos is a chronicle of liquid geographies/ Swimming on every tongue..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Fiction

Sketches of my Mother

"The mother of my memories was elegant. She would not step out of the house without her trademark red lipstick and perfect hair. She...

Fiction

The Way of Meat

"Every day—any day—any one of us could be picked out for any reason, and we would be... We’d part like hair, pushing into the...

Fiction

Between Two Worlds

"Ursula spotted the three black students immediately. Everyone did. They could not be missed because they kept to themselves and apart from the rest...."...

Essays

Talking Gender

"In fact it is often through the uninformed use of such words that language becomes a tool in perpetuating sexism and violence against women...

Essays

Unmasking Female Circumcision

"Though the origins of the practice are unknown, many medical historians believe that FGM dates back to at least 2,000 years." Gimel Samera looks...

Essays

Not Just A Phase

"...in the workplace, a person can practically be forced out of their job by discrimination, taking numerous days off for fear of their physical...

Essays

The Birth of Bigotry

"The psychology of prejudice demands that we are each our own moral police". Maria Amir on the roots of bigotry and intolerance.

Fiction

The Score

"The person on the floor was unmistakeably dead. It looked like a woman; she couldn’t be sure yet..." By Hawa Jande Golakai.

More Stories

On the acquisition of language

“For we are children of/ legacies that took our tongues…” Poem of the Week (January 14), by Sanaa Jatoi.

Back to top
One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at maryamp@themissingslate.com.

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

Read previous post:
The Trouble with Humpadori

"One of Humpadori’s organising principles might be the deceptive kookiness with which it expresses its existential concerns; its aesthetic gaudiness...

Close