To my nephew, Hussain, on his birthday

Omer Tarin

​Lodged up there, on an imagined elephant’s back
Your voice chants out with pride
A medal of triumph, great in itself,
Strange and shining in its innocent strength,
Like the stars, dazzling us both with precicious wisdom ;

The roaring cataract of love surrounds us
And your smile becomes a lion,
Golden-maned and true.

© 2016 Omer Tarin 

Omer Tarin is a Pakistani poet in English, research scholar, social activist and mystic. Tarin has published five volumes of poetry in English, widely reviewed in Pakistan and abroad, as well as several poems published in anthologies and collections worldwide, including A Sad Piper (1994; 1996 UK),  The Anvil of Dreams (1995), Burnt Offerings (1996, 1997),  Riverbeds Flowing, and The Harvest of Love Songs (1997, 2000; and UK ed 2003).  In addition to his literary and academic interests, Omer Tarin has established a private library for research students and scholars in a wing of his home and also donated a sizable collection to the National Archives of Pakistan and the University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.