This is the first part of a collaboration with well known American poetess Deborah Russell.

Deborah Russell begins stanzas, Muhammad Naveed Ahmed (Emmenay) replies:

Deborah
I am caught in the waves of a rushing tide
Where does one run with no where to hide?

Emmenay
Like you once said, in this world of lust and greed,
Who wants love without selfish need?

Deborah
Im still chasing rainbows and dreams
And love is never of the heart it seems.

Emmenay
So rightly put, I know how you feel
The repeated stabs of bloodthirsty steel
The lusty denizens of this lousy land
Wait like vultures above desert sand.

Deborah
The waves rush and gnawl at my heel
Grasp for my heart and cause me to reel
Is it love that makes my soul tremble and shake
Or is it what mends and binds the heart that breaks?

Emmenay
Even my feet are cold in knee deep water
But I don't care, it does not matter,
A soul like Ophelia where can I find
Selfless love, sincere, caring and kind,
Always willing to give without expectation,
Without a frown, without hesitation,
Having the best she was ready to be,
Just for me and only me.
The crab without a claw clutches my toe
I feel the gnawing pain but don't show,
How I am rent apart by Adam's last seeds
How I am entangled between unseen weeds.

Deborah
The song in my throat still waiting to sing
And the love in my heart a fluttering wing
A rapture thats quivering within my soul
That mysterious love that captures and holds.

Emmenay
The song in your throat is Orpheus' lute,
You strive to sing a forgotten note,
The rapture that quivers within your soul
Will it ever lead you to your destined goal?
Why do you battle and question your conscience?
Love needs no proof, it is ever radiant...

Deborah
In the deep of this pit a smoldering burns
An ember memory of the pure love that I yearn.

Emmenay
Why do you shake and shiver when love has been found,
Does anything else matter? Waves, light our sound
The ember memory of that love which you yearn,
How can you find it in this superficial world,
Or are you striving to capture a stone you hurled?

Deborah
Thousands of waves have tumbled the seas
It's but love that shakes when I try to break free

Emmenay
I stand and challenge the tidal wave,
Be like me, why can't you be brave,
How can love shake your feet, tell me how,
When it strengthens everything, from below and above?

Deborah
I have found love a yoke, reins and a tether
And am yet searching for love like a feather...

Emmenay
Or is it a parched fragment that you clutch,
Love stands on its own, does not need a crutch,
The open sea is a contest for you and me,
Let us be like Prometheus, let us be free

Deborah
I know love's something that touches ever so light
That will never hold me or grab me too tight...

Emmenay
Oh, ask the moth that crashes and dies
In its quest for the flame queen loses his lives
In the morning both the moth and the flame are gone
One achieves eternity, the other forlorn.
Let me tell you a secret of all hearts that love,
They want nothing but a hope and a vow,
Beyond selfishness is their treasure-filled realm,
Beyond ifs and buts and how and when.

Deborah
It was those ties that bound me quite tight and confound
Gave to my need for love, no limits or bounds...
(Continued as Ember of Memory-II