The Jogger on Riverside Drive, 5:00 A.M. by Agha Shahid Ali
The Jogger on Riverside Drive, 5:00 A.M.
Agha Shahid AliThe dark scissors of his legs
cut the moon’sraw silk, highways of wind
torn into lanes, his feetpushing down the shadow
whose patterns he becomeswhile trucks, one by one,
pass him by,headlights pouring
from his pace, his eyescracked as the Hudson
wraps street lampsin its rippled blue shells,
the summer’s thin, thin veinsbursting with dawn,
he, now suddenly free,from the air, from himself,
his heart beating far, farbehind him
MARGINALIA
Thinking about one particular deadline I would have very much liked to meet. But life is different now, T., so get over it.
ABOUT AGHA SHAHID ALI
A Kashmiri American Muslim, Agha Shahid Ali is best known as a poet in the United States and identified himself as an American poet writing in English. Ali wrote nine poetry collections and a book of literary criticism (T.S. Eliot as Editor, 1986), as well as translated a collection of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poetry (The Rebel’s Silhouette, 1992) and edited Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English (2000), a collection of ghazals (a Persian poetic form employing repetition, rhyme,… (more)
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ENDNOTES
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DB Jirel 'ravi'
Wonderful read.