Wednesday, February 25, 2009

"Medusa", by Agha Shahid Ali

"I must be beautiful,
Or why would men be speechless
at my sight? I have populated the countryside
with animals of stone
and put nations painlessly to sleep.

I too was human. I who now live here
at the end of the world
with two aging sisters, spinsters
massaging poisons into our scalps
and sunning our ruffled snakes,

and dreading the night, when
under the warm stars
we recall men we have loved,
their gestures forever refusing us.

Then why let anything remain
when whatever we loved
turned instantly to stone?
I am waiting for the Mediterranean
to see me: It will petrify.
And as caravans from Africa begin to cross it,
I will freeze their cargo of slaves.

Soon, soon, the sky will have eyes:
I will fossilize its dome into cracked blue,
I who am about to come
into God's full view
from the wrong side of the mirror
into which He gazes.”

And so she dreams
till the sun-crimsoned shield
blinds her into nightmare:
her locks, falling from their roots,
crawl into rocks to die.
Perseus holds the sword above her neck.
Restless in her sleep, she,
for the last time, brushes back
the hissing curls from her forehead.

19 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Agha Shahid Ali was an Indian-American Kashmiri poet. His collections include A Walk Through the Yellow Pages, The Half-Inch Himalayas, A Nostalgist's Map of America, The Country Without a Post Office, and Rooms Are Never Finished, the latter a finalist for the National Book Award in 2001. Wikipedia

      feb 4 1949 - dec 8 2001

      dont disrespect him bro

      Delete
  2. Very nice 🤣🤭🤭

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  3. this poem is good and it has a lot of encargement

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  4. its good and engaging and nice

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  5. This was a great poem. I'm an 11 year old in 6th grade that skipped kindergarten, and my class read this. Medusa is a great character in Greek mythology, and we should show some respect to the author, Agha Shahid Ali, born February 4, 1949 and died December 8, 2001. At least he didn't have to experience COVID-19...

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