If ever there were an English mushaira,
it wouldn’t begin with applause—
but with a silence that settles like soft dusk upon a tired city.
No spotlight, no raised hand—just a voice,
spilling like warm tea into porcelain twilight.
There’d be no declarations, no stage bravado—
only the gentle unfolding of metaphors,
like a lover untying the knot in a letter
they’ve read too many times to count.
A poet would rise not to perform,
but to confide.
And we would listen—not to respond,
but to remember something we had forgotten
in the bustle of being.
Perhaps someone would speak of grief
not as a tragedy, but a companion—
and another would turn longing into a landscape
where no country has borders, and every silence is sacred.
There’d be no winners. No final round.
Only verses—draped across hearts like shawls in December.
And somewhere in the back,
someone would whisper, “How strange... I’ve never heard English ache like this before.”
