A little piece on PEACE — Waliullah

And now I, too, get to say, MANY thanks, Baba Ted, for sharing your 9/11 reflections with us, and many thanks to you, dear sister Fatima, for sharing your thoughts about peace framed in a poem by an Afghan girl.

I was just 10 months old when we left for Pakistan as refugees. We returned after spending about nine years in refugee land at the time when the Taliban's severe regime was defeated. Still we had war to the north of Kabul (in my district and around it). On that very first day, I lost two of my uncles, one after the other. I held onto my thoughts of that unforgettable day and later on I wrote a story about that day.

I have this little piece (a combination of two poems) and would like to share it with YOU ALL.

(PEACE):

The hated evening, it was very hot;
I thought everything is dying even God.
The moon was sighing, whole stars were crying,
I did both because I thought hopes are dying.

It was when grandma couldn’t see me anymore,
The war gave her blind eyes.
We came from burying one uncle who was shot.
The other was dying, the whole village was crying.
The war gave him shrapnel in his head.

Village was crying because everything was dying.
Blood was oozing from the black trees and walls.
It was blood trickling in the streams.
I buried two beloveds that evening.
AND it was just my first night in my village.

I thought, I am home in a stranger’s home-
I yelled: “God!!! What is it?”
Somebody said the world is an orphan in a parent’s life.
Father is in a cage, mother is caged, and the guardian is in prison.
The beloved dove of PEACE was in prison…

I shouted: hey, white dove, hang on in the cage!
I am coming for you! Wali is coming for you!
Everyone, not only me, is coming for you!
Hey, white dove, we will free you from that cage!

When I was coming toward you barefoot,
For my bloody feet, covered feet were crying,
But it is this love thing in you;
Which made me crawl toward you.

You are nothing but a (P)OINT and (E)ASE to everything,
An (A)ROMA with (C)ERTAIN (E)NORMOUSNESS for life.

You are the only missing, lost and absent thing.
East is crying, West is crying—
South is crying, North is crying; we can’t see you dying.
We are trying to get you out of the cage,
I am trying and we are trying.