Journey of the Heart

T his poem is about the experiences a woman undergoes en route to her imagined destination constellating transcendental images and notions. It verbalizes the fragmented feelings and abstractions sauntering from heart to mind, and from the mind back to the heart. Pleading to the Soul   Like the starlit sky in the dusky nights, Glimmer in my haunting eyes. Like the mirage of a secluded desert, Lead me astray in your search. Like the euphoric herb, Elate me higher above the heavens. Like nirvana while meditating, Be the ecstasy of my solitude. Like the full-moon night, Be the howl of a lonesome wolf. Like the psithurism of Autumn, Be the crispy music in the hush of my world.   Hafsa Mumtaz   (she/her/hers), Aged 22, is a Pakistan-based emerging poet, a recent graduate of English Language and Literature, and a Muslim. Her poems have appeared in  Visual Verse Anthology , and one in  Rising Phoenix Review . She, especially, likes to write about seeking pleasure in me...

This poem was written after a walk at dawn by a canal and a marina… I was alone, and the images over the water were so meditative and so calm, and you could hear stillness speaking. I walked, took photographs, and came right back to write this poem. With my interest in yoga and meditation, I also found this attention to the breath echoed in this poem. Sometimes, if you stop breathing by  Jhilmil Breckenridge   sometimes  if you stop breathing you can hear you can hear the sound of the single drop of water as it drips  onto a bit of tin amidst the grass and the mud or the sound of the ducks’  feathers as they play  in the eddies or the sound of the sun as it rises over the grey canal kissing it to life over treetops that are japanese watercolours and boats moored in the marina memories of a time gone by sometimes  if you stop breathing you can feel you can feel the breeze on the hair of your...