Meaning
A bud; an unopened flower.
Literally: flower-bud (unopened)
How Iqbal uses it
The kali is the unopened bud — the flower still closed, classically the image of folded promise, of the heart not yet opened, of beauty and feeling held tight within; the bud that may bloom into a rose or wither unopened, and whose 'smile' is the moment it bursts into flower. Iqbal uses the bud for latent, gathered potential — the self or the spring still furled, charged with a bloom not yet released, waiting on the breeze or the will that will open it.