Rainy Day Healing

INFATUATION

BY POET IN RESIDENCE, TAMAR ZHGHENTI: APRIL 2026

Maybe ten years ago now or more, Georgian student Tamar Zhghenti sent me a poem, her first poem written in English. When I read it, I instantly knew that she was a very fine poet. A poet. Not a student, but a poet. She has recently revised the initial poem, quite extensively, and I present it to you today … – Martina, April 2026

 

 

INFATUATION 

 

Looking back,

I see a traveller in a desert,

crawling among the dunes.

The wind is howling:

“sleep, sleep.”

The traveller keeps on –

through heat, through miles of nothing,

a lifetime dragging on,

until someone walks towards them,

unhurried.

“Hello,” says the traveller.

“Hell? Oh – no.

Just a desert.

Better than that, if anything.

Cooler.”

And the stranger walks on.

The traveller stops.

All is plain.

The desert holds –

the same as every step before.

“Sleep, sleep.”

– God, take this thirst,

or give me a vision.

The wind goes on:

“sleep, sleep.”

And then I see –

the traveller,

knelt on the tip of a dune,

smiling into their cupped palms.

They lift a handful to their lips,

as if to drink –

but the sand slips through their fingers.

They lift it again,

And again.

For a moment,

the burning grains

become water –

they do,

they do.

 

 

 

 

 

Tamar Zhghenti: Facebook

Martina Nicolls RAINY DAY HEALING: Rainy Day Healing

Rainy Day Healing POET IN RESIDENCE: POET IN RESIDENCE

Rainy Day Healing POP UP POETRY: POP UP POETRY

Rainy Day Healing blogs – MAKING MY PEACE