Three Cups of Tea

"Three Cups of Tea" is a tribute to northeren areas of Pakistan.

An invitation,
To view, to surrender
Only the reflection
You capture
All we see, as we remain
In these valleys
In Swat and Narran,
Through winding rivers
Kinhar and Hunza
Across Kaghan and Chitral

A few moments,
Enough to last
As I travel
From Bisham to Skardau
When snow falls
As if mists were the roads
From khaweza khael
To the old Chillas,
As river Indus flows
From where you can only see
The old line,
As if it were drawn
By a sharpened pencil

Long and ravenous
In our imagination,
Those places,
From an unknown time
The old mountains,
Like soldiers on guard,
As we see this beauty
Raw and pure, no other way

As I forget in its addiction
My home, my valleys,
It is here I belong,
It is here I will remain
Cannot you conquer or possess,
Inside us, these places
Remember the old handshakes
Only a stranger on the first cup
And friend on the second,
As the tea flows in,
And on third, you are a part of us
Remain we will, friends in our sights
It is here “where beauty is carved”
It is here, where freedom is bliss
It is here, where I roam,
Amongst those flowers and rivers

It is here where I am,
An invitation to the eye,
No darkened nights, only the light
In its life and in its instincts
It is here where beauty can mingle
With danger, the freedom at last
It is here, where beauty is wild
It is here, where beauty is stitched
In us, in our souls, in our existence
Cannot you conquer or possess
In us, only the reflections you capture!

Kashkin