Poem
Moniza Alvi
How the Stone Found Its Voice
How the Stone Found Its Voice
How the Stone Found Its Voice
We had waited through so many lifetimesfor the stone to speak, wondered if
it would make compelling pronouncements,
anything worth writing down.
Then after the war of wars
had ground to a shattering halt, the stone
emitted a small grinding sound rather like
the clearing of a throat.
Let us be indifferent to indifference,
the stone said.
And then the world spoke.
© 2005, Moniza Alvi
From: How the Stone Found Its Voice
Publisher: Bloodaxe, Tarset
Published with kind permission of the author and Bloodaxe (www.bloodaxebooks.com).
From: How the Stone Found Its Voice
Publisher: Bloodaxe, Tarset
Moniza Alvi
(Pakistan, 1954)
Moniza Alvi was born in Lahore in Pakistan, the daughter of a Pakistani father and an English mother. She moved to England when she was a few months old, and grew up in Hertfordshire. She didn’t revisit Pakistan until after her first book of poems, The Country at My Shoulder, was published.
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How the Stone Found Its Voice
We had waited through so many lifetimesfor the stone to speak, wondered if
it would make compelling pronouncements,
anything worth writing down.
Then after the war of wars
had ground to a shattering halt, the stone
emitted a small grinding sound rather like
the clearing of a throat.
Let us be indifferent to indifference,
the stone said.
And then the world spoke.
From: How the Stone Found Its Voice
Published with kind permission of the author and Bloodaxe (www.bloodaxebooks.com).
How the Stone Found Its Voice
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