The wind that blows,

It blows from three hundred miles away,

From the back of my home,

From over the dark and cool pond,    

It sweeps the petals of china box flowers,

Hanging loose from the drooping branches,

Over the silent and flower strewn water,

And darts towards the rain bathed paddy field,

Draped with the smell of wet earth,

And with the fragrance of flowers,

It gusts ahead to cross miles of distance,

The demons of toxins lurk on the way,  

With the dark caverns of their mouths open,

To trap within them the wind’s aroma,    

And only its chill reaches to brush against my face,

Here in this sparkling metropolis evening,

To remind me of that fragrant wind,

That still blows from three hundred miles away,

From the back of my home,

From over the dark and cool pond.

———– Dr. Fathema Begum