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Winning Entry: Poetry Category

THE SHATTERED SOUL

My mind is a bird with broken wings

Wandering in this dark and heavily pregnant sky

The cloud roars up the whirlwind

Heartbroken and numb with grief

As I sit relishing a last gleam of sunlight

A rocket surge in Covid-19 cases

And the death that comes with it

Near me, 

Rays of hope rise from the Qur'an

Words of peace tingling my thoughts, 

"Allah will bring about ease after difficulty"

The story of Ayyub is like a vase fallen down the flight of stairs unbroken

"... so be not of the despairing"

Beautiful to behold is our unsung hero, the pharmacist, 

See how she braces us and  delivers the balm to our scourge, 

Incarnating love that perches our soul

Like parrot perching on shoulders in  a mine craft

With low gear for safety, 

Drugs are stretched and spread from her love and care, 

Just to keep at bay our illnesses

She grasps at straw and aims  to relieve us of the pandemic, 

But my heart catches fire and  tastes the bitterness of the price she pays 

I sit here as my tongue fades into a desert, 

The ants returning to their cave

Will I come out of this jungle of distress alive?

The pharmacist says hope for peace and relief

As the sun will shine and the rain will cease

—

JIMOH Abdullateef's The Shattered Soul won the first prize in the poetry category of the Pharmaceutical Muslim Students Society of Nigeria's Annual Writing Contest.


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