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‘Elegy for a Sunflower’ and other poems by Sophia Naz

13th June 202014th June 2020  Sophia Naz

Sophia Naz’s lush and imagistic poems describe the fallen splendour of a wilting sunflower, the passing of a season and a desolate landscape of leafless redwood trees.

Elegy for a Sunflower

Thousand-eyed-one

yellow with longing, you tilt

your head, gazing on the Beloved

her mouth of alms

Slow ripening kisses

set you aflame

the master’s mirror, golden constellation 

light’s mandala spinning

sacred geometry

Sunflower, supplicant, who earned

a name, as Rumi, inseparable from Shams 

Bride of Seeds, the world

wedded you

Made hollow, you sway

in the slightest breeze

emptiness the shell that holds

everything else 

I gaze on your zen carcass

silent skeleton stalk

out of the frame

Parrots talk and talk.

Turncoats

She stands at the edge

Solitary Japanese plum

scarlet plumage rustling

worn out sleeves, a geisha 

from April to Autumn 

When the season takes its leaves 

passion cooling

umeshu sours to vinegar

rumors ripen on 

Grapevines, grow ruby throats

once lonely, soliloquies

burnish their tenor, turncoats 

crescendo in symphony.

Taproot

Torn limb from limb

by glutton firing 

the redwoods stand

row after row, denuded

as prisoners executed yet

still bound to posts  

the silent sentients herd

a naked cathedral, arms 

crucifix on nothing, nail it

dark coats unbuttoning 

all talk of seasons falls

by the wayside, spring’s

a greening scab, across 

picket lines, striking 

at the heart, memory 

leafs from a taproot, unbidden 

pages your life, turning looks back

as a red rimmed Odin would 

eye the sun and recall 

his plucked skull-flower

floating away 

on horizon’s ocean, parting 

wisdom, the sum

of uncountable loss

About Sophia Naz

Sophia Naz is a bilingual poet, essayist, author, editor and translator. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, in 2016 for creative nonfiction and in 2018 for poetry. Her work features in numerous literary journals and anthologies. Naz is a regular contributor to Dawn, poetry editor and columnist at The Sunflower Collective, as well as the founder of rekhti.org, a site dedicated to contemporary Urdu poetry by women. Her poetry collections are Peripheries (2015), Pointillism (2017) and Date Palms (2017). Her latest book, a biography of her mother, titled Shehnaz; A Tragic True Tale of Royalty, Glamour and Heartbreak was published in November 2019 by Penguin. Her site is SophiaNaz.com

About Sara Rivers

Sara Rivers is an artist who works in different media. She completed her foundation diploma at Brighton School of Art and her BA in Fine Art at Canterbury School of Art. She has also studied Art Therapy at St Albans School of Art, Hertfordshire. Sara founded the Creativity Centre, a space for outsider artists and those recovering from mental ill health, at Isledon Road (formerly Corsica Street), London. She is a founder member of the Otherside Gallery, and has created three short films, all of which were funded by the NHS. Sara is passionate about improving the services available to people experiencing mental ill health, and has led many campaigns against the continued cuts to day services in the borough of Islington. Sara is the current artist for Lucy Writers, and has designed all the artwork for the website to date. To view more of Sara’s work follow her new Instagram account @pixbysararivers and see her profile on Outside In.

‘Elegy for a Sunflower’ and other poems were written for the series Flora & Fauna of Foreign Places, which was conceived and edited by Usha Akella for Lucy Writers.

Flora and fauna define our cultural sensibility; what trees and flowers we grew up with signifies ‘home.’ Transplant an individual to a foreign environment with strange trees and flowers, he or she is likely to feel ‘foreign’. Flowers are culturally specific in symbolism expressed in social events like weddings and funerals. 

As a recent graduate of a Creative Writing MSt living in America, Usha noticed that in addition to the gift of knowledge and friendships, her journeys to the UK sparked an interest in flora. For the first time, she noticed a passion to want to know the names of flowers and trees. Somewhere along the way between the limes of Trinity College and the walnut maple of Madingley Hall; between the splendid gardens of Rydal Mount and rolling vales of Cumbria, she had been infected with a green-eye. When she walks in her Austin neighbourhood, she is now incited to know the names of the wildflowers and trees that she took for granted visually. And she notices, how this new world seeps into her writing gradually. 

Right now, the early bloom of summer is upon most countries. So, it seems perfect to celebrate flowers, plants and trees as a theme for the poetry issue. In the next few weeks, Usha will be publishing poems by writers from around the world that explore, reflect on and appreciate the flora and fauna of foreign places, and what they mean to them.

Posted in Creative Writing, PoetryTagged: Flora & Fauna of Foreign Places, nature, Poetry, Sophia Naz, Sunflowers, Trees, turncoats, Usha Akella

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