Ghazal

My family has a small writing group, and my uncle Tad created our last assignment: Write A Ghazal. The Ghazal is an Arabic poem made up of several rhyming couplets, but the first and second line end with the same word, and each subsequent refrain ends with that first word again–if that didn’t make sense, it will, below. A traditional Ghazal is about love or pain, but then, what good poem isn’t?

I don’t pretend to be a poet, but here is my Ghazal. It’s called “Sigh” and is dedicated to my beautiful 5 month old daughter!

The weight of the world expelled in her sigh
Slow breath upon tiny chest, an innocent sigh.

Watch the sun set and her mood temper,
blinking eyes grow heavy, ever-resistant sigh.

See her father in those eyes/ fair hair,
mama’s presence mirrored in her sigh.

More long nights, fractured sleeping,
a glass of wine, a burdened sigh.

Nothing lasts forever, even tears,
years from now I’ll miss her sweet sigh.