Acrostic
The Bench Beside the River
Every afternoon, the riverside park welcomed different faces—children playing, friends talking, strangers jogging. Yet among the noise and movement, one person always remained still. His name was Mr. Haroon, an elderly man who sat quietly on the same wooden bench near the flowing river. His presence was a part of the park, like the leaves or the wind. He did not speak. He did not smile. He simply watched the water pass as if waiting for something. Many assumed he was just an old man seeking fresh air. No one knew his story. One day, a young boy named Sami arrived at the park holding a sketchbook. He liked drawing the river, the birds, and the bench. For him, the world became art, and happiness rested in paper and pencil. When he saw Mr. Haroon, he noticed something unusual—there was a deep silence in the old man’s eyes. A silence that felt heavier than stones. After several days of seeing him alone, Sami thought, Maybe I should talk to him. But before he could gather courage, something strange happened. Sami forgot his sketchbook on the bench where he had been sitting earlier. When he realized it, he ran back, hoping it was still there. There he found Mr. Haroon, holding the sketchbook gently as though it were delicate treasure. “You draw well,” the old man said, breaking his week-long silence. Sami shyly smiled. “Thank you, sir.” Instead of handing the book immediately, Mr. Haroon opened it again and studied the pages. “You draw this bench often,” he said. “I like how peaceful it looks,” Sami replied. “It feels honest.” Mr. Haroon’s eyes softened. “Honest,” he repeated slowly, as if tasting the word for the first time in years. After a quiet pause he asked, “May I sit with you while you draw?” That small request opened a door neither had expected. From that day onward, they met at the bench every afternoon. Sami drew while Mr. Haroon shared stories, not always pleasant, but always sincere. He told the boy he once had a son who loved drawing too, but life and distance took them apart. The river reminded him of time—always moving forward, never returning anything it carried away. Sami listened carefully, not trying to fix the sadness, just being there. His presence was not a solution, but it was company. And sometimes, company itself heals more than solutions. Weeks passed. The park, once indifferent to the old man, now held two figures. Laughter began to replace silence. Hope returned where loneliness once lived. Then one afternoon, Sami arrived and noticed the bench was empty. No hat, no old man. Only the sound of the river. He waited, thinking maybe Mr. Haroon was late. Minutes turned into hours, but the seat stayed empty. The next day, a park caretaker approached Sami. He handed him a carefully folded note. “The old gentleman asked me to give you this,” he said. With trembling hands, Sami opened it. > “Thank you for bringing color back into an old memory. You reminded me that kindness has no age. Keep drawing. Let the world see what hearts often forget. — Haroon” Sami didn’t shed a tear. Instead, he sat on the bench, opened his sketchbook, and began to draw—this time not the river, not the trees, but the bench with a hat resting on it. And for the first time, the park felt silent in a beautiful way. Not empty—just peaceful. The river kept flowing, but now it carried something new: the quiet warmth of friendship that asks for nothing but presence.
By Muhammad Saad 11 months ago in Poets
The Poetry Within Us: Unlocking the Human Mind Through Verse
It started with a whisper. Not from another person, but from within—the kind of whisper that stirs at the edge of sleep, that makes you pause mid-step and wonder if you’ve forgotten something vital. For Maya, a neuroscience student drowning in textbooks and lab reports, that whisper came on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. She had spent the past four years immersed in facts—studying neurons, brain scans, dopamine pathways. Everything had to be measurable, repeatable, explainable. Yet, despite her academic success, she felt detached from herself, like a satellite orbiting her own life. Then came the elective course: The Psychology of Poetry. She enrolled reluctantly, needing the credits, expecting little more than historical analysis and a few stanzas of Shakespeare. What she didn’t expect was to cry in class. The poem was “Having a Coke with You” by Frank O’Hara. The professor read it aloud—gently, deliberately, with reverence. Maya didn’t understand why her chest tightened or why her eyes stung. She had never met the poet, had never experienced his world, but somehow, in those lines, she felt seen. That was the moment everything changed. --- The human brain, Maya would later learn, doesn’t distinguish sharply between real and imagined emotion. When you read a poem that evokes sadness, joy, or awe, your brain often responds as if you’re living the experience. The same neural circuits activate—the limbic system lights up, oxytocin is released, and connections strengthen. Poetry, she realized, was a neurological symphony. And yet, it was more than chemistry. It was a bridge. In class, students shared poems that had shaped them. One read about their father’s death; another about coming out. A quiet classmate, who never spoke during biology lectures, recited a piece they had written about anxiety—each metaphor a map to a place they’d never shown anyone. For the first time, Maya understood the quiet power of shared vulnerability. Poetry didn’t just unlock the mind. It softened it. --- Maya began writing her own verses. At first, they were clumsy and overly structured, like her lab reports. But slowly, the lines loosened. Rhyme gave way to rhythm. She wrote about her mother’s silence, her childhood fear of thunderstorms, the pressure to be “smart” and composed. Each poem was a key, unlocking memories she hadn’t realized were sealed away. More importantly, it made her a better friend, sister, and researcher. She started noticing emotional subtleties in conversations, listening not just for content but for cadence, for pauses, for what went unsaid. Her empathy deepened, and so did her curiosity—not just about how the brain worked, but about how it felt to be alive. --- Scientific studies began to echo what Maya felt intuitively. A 2023 research article revealed that reading and writing poetry could significantly reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, especially in adolescents. Another found that poetic language activated regions of the brain associated with reward and memory more intensely than ordinary speech. Even patients with dementia, when exposed to familiar poems, displayed improved communication and mood. Poetry, it turned out, could tap into neural pathways long after others had deteriorated. Maya started volunteering at a memory care center, reading poems to elderly residents. One woman, who rarely spoke, began reciting lines of Emily Dickinson, her voice frail but steady. For a moment, her eyes sparkled with recognition, as if time had folded in on itself and brought her home. It was more than therapy. It was resurrection. --- Years later, with a PhD in neuroscience and a poetry collection published, Maya stood at a TEDx stage. Her talk was titled “The Poetry Within Us: Unlocking the Human Mind Through Verse.” She spoke not just of neurons and scans, but of silence broken by verse, of people finding their voices, of science meeting soul. She ended with her favorite line from Mary Oliver: > “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” And then she answered, in a quiet voice: “To listen. To write. To feel. To remind others that within every brain—no matter how scarred or silent—there lives a poem waiting to be heard.” --- In a world obsessed with speed, productivity, and logic, poetry reminds us to slow down, to sit with discomfort, to find beauty in ambiguity. It sharpens cognition, enhances emotional literacy, and deepens connection. The poetry within us is not a luxury. It is a necessity. And when we unlock it, we unlock each other.
By Muhammad Saad 12 months ago in Poets
Whispers Under the Silver Sky
In every poet’s life, there comes a moment when the familiar rhythm of words suddenly quiets. What once flowed like spring water begins to hesitate, and silence grows where imagination used to bloom. Ayaan knew this feeling too well. For weeks, his pen rested still, and every blank page felt heavier than the last. Poetry had always been Ayaan’s way of understanding the world. He wrote to celebrate moments, to heal invisible wounds, and to reveal beauty hidden in ordinary days. But lately, even beauty felt out of reach. No matter how long he waited or how deeply he searched inside himself, inspiration refused to appear. One evening, when the sky softened into a shade between lavender and dusk, Ayaan walked to the lakeside near his home. It was a place he trusted—a quiet corner where the world felt calm enough to listen. The soft ripples of the water usually stirred his thoughts, but tonight the lake remained silent, matching the silence inside him. He sat on a smooth stone and opened his notebook, hoping the surroundings might help. “Just one line,” he whispered to the empty page. “Just one.” But nothing came. Ayaan sighed, closing his eyes. “What if I’ve lost my voice?” he wondered aloud. As the breeze brushed past him, a warm glow approached from the path behind. An elderly woman holding a lantern walked slowly toward the lake. Her presence felt peaceful, as if she belonged to the evening itself. “You look troubled,” she said gently, sitting a few steps away from him. “I used to write poetry every day,” Ayaan admitted. “But now the words won’t come. I don’t know why.” The woman studied the shimmering water. “Ah,” she said softly. “You’re chasing your words. No wonder they’re hiding.” Ayaan blinked. “Chasing them?” She nodded with a quiet smile. “Poetry isn’t something to capture. It’s something to welcome. When you try too hard, words become shy. But when you breathe, listen, and let the world speak first, they find their way back.” Her voice held a calm certainty that eased something in his chest. “Look up,” she said. Ayaan lifted his eyes. The sky above him glittered with countless stars, each one steady, patient, unhurried. The reflection in the lake doubled the view, making it feel as though he was surrounded by a universe of tiny lights. “Every star,” the woman continued, “is a story waiting for someone who’s willing to notice. Poets are not meant to force stories—they are meant to feel them.” Ayaan let the words sink in. The night air smelled faintly of jasmine, and crickets sang a soft, rhythmic song. Slowly, the heaviness he had carried for weeks began to fade. “When was the last time you wrote something only for yourself?” she asked. “Not for approval. Not for an audience. Just for your own heart.” He thought about it and realized he could not remember. “Then start there,” she said warmly. “Begin with something small. Something true.” She stood, her lantern casting circles of warm light across the path. “Your voice isn’t gone,” she added. “It’s simply resting.” With that, she slowly walked away, leaving Ayaan alone with the sky and the water. He opened his notebook again. This time, he didn’t beg for a perfect line. He didn’t demand inspiration. He simply looked at the world around him—the lake, the stars, the gentle night—and let himself feel grateful for the moment. His hand moved. The night holds quiet miracles, And I am learning to listen again. Even silence has a heartbeat, If the heart is patient enough to hear it. More words followed—soft, honest, imperfect, but alive. They flowed without pressure, each sentence lifting a bit of weight from his spirit. When he finally closed the notebook, Ayaan felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time: lightness. He walked home beneath the silver sky, knowing the truth every poet eventually discovers— Inspiration never leaves us. It waits calmly until we return to ourselves.
By Muhammad Saad 12 months ago in Poets
