Mariam Kadhim

The sun rises everywhere

Criss-crossing air and water
Clocking miles none can measure
What’s the deal globe-trotter?
Searching for hidden treasure?

Oh, I’m just teasing!
Clearly
You’re a lucky chap
who’s nearly
out the door again…so fast?
Heavens no! My time has passed

Along you go without me
Arrivederci! Adiós!
See Aruba, Bonaire, Fiji,
Here I’ll be in Kinross

Chow on empanadas,
duruka and ceviche
Spy blue-green iguanas,
Explore your coral reefs

Walk round Mayan ruins
Speak the tongue of stranger nations
Take guided tours – from palaces
– to Ceylon tea plantations

Away with your pity! away with you pet!
I wish so too, but life ploughs on
I’m happy with these hills, these sheep,
My tea and buttered scone

Write me under a Judas tree
Send me olives and black rice
In fact, don’t feel obliged my lad
Two, three stories will suffice

Don’t think of me with sorrow
I know fine well that life is short
Yet wrong you are, and fluffed you’d be
To assume from my passport
That I’m a mere provincial,
Uncultivated miser
For what such pages don’t disclose
Is I’m an early riser;
The dawn of day, the morning dew;
Life’s little reasons
(In my book)

The boundless world, all around
And all I do is look

Copyright © Mariam Kadhim 2017

I’m Mariam Kadhim: a twenty something aspiring French language teacher of Iraqi heritage. Scotland is where I live, study, read, and write.