SING-CHITNIS Kalpna

The Daughters of The Hindu Kush

A woman receives justice in an open court

delivered by the guardians of God’s word?

Her sin asks for every piece of stone hauled from

the mountains of Hindu Kush, the gateway to my home,

the graveyards of my ancestors laid barren and cold,

the cloisters of the legends never been told.

We no longer want to talk about Afghanistan.

We are out. We are done with saving Sakineh and Malala,

bringing back our girls! We make conscious choices…

A crowd sits in a circle and watches the justice being delivered.

There are many circles outside the circle invisible to our eyes.

She cannot escape! Her lover is not present in the scene.

Wasn’t he suppose to receive justice too? For the sake of God,

hear her say the words, never been added to our dictionaries.

Hush! Hush! Hush! Do not fuss!

I’m not sure if there would be a Congressional hearing for such cases

in my country? The photographer filming the court proceedings,

would he win a Pulitzer? Or lose his hands— on the scene?

Hush! Hush! Hush! Don’t be obscene!

Keep your eyes closed if you can’t watch.

The storms shall pass. The storms shall pass!

But they keep returning. Fear runs through my body.

The pain of the woman being flogged is familiar to my skin.

Our forebear were kins, dragged in chains,

centuries went in vain, serving the men —

carrying swords, sabers, and spears. Naked and cold,

they were auctioned and sold in Ghazna and Khorāsān,

Cairo, Basra, and beyond. Lashes rained on the bodies refusing to kneel

and sail off to distant lands. The lightning swords shattered their bones,

scorched their spirits, their saviors were gone; morphed into mounds of skulls.

Their homes and villages were destroyed. Carved in gold,

silver, and stone, their idols disappeared, and I wonder,

would this woman’s face appear on the cover of the New York Times,

in the headlines of The Washington Post and Al Jazeera?

Jeff Bezos, did you get a 360-degree view of this woman’s body

while cruising in space with your crew?

Twitter bird, say a few words when you’re over with your priorities,

fly to her land to save humanity. Facebook, allow some space for

women without faces, disappeared without traces in time.

The lashes piling on her body are peeling her skin bit by bit;

cleansing her sin? I do not understand a word of my kin,

I have forgotten the language of my people, our prayers.

It has been centuries, I haven’t uttered a word.

I must void my myths now and forever.

Dipped in red of the ink seeping through my veins,

my fingers must write my accounts, and etch them on my tombstones

in every corner of the earth. My pain must be worth…!

Dear God, do you know, when you send me a man to love, ask me to

carry him in my womb, give him the birth, and strike me down,

I dig my nails into the ground and the earth tremors?

Yet, I do not hold you responsible for my sufferings.

My love, tell me for once that you loved me!

Mother, hold my hand. I taste my blood in my mouth.

Cover me, I have wet my undergarment.

Angels, take my baby to heaven,

bury her safe in the clouds,

I’m losing her, bleeding from the bottom.

Grandma, bring the scissors, cut the umbilical cord,

and sing me a song they can’t hear.

I want to sleep. Now.

Father, do you see, I am breaking like a seed?

My lungs have split, and my voice is escaping my vocal cords.

I’m not dying. I am being born into freedom.


The Best Kept Secret

When I first learned the phrase "dirt poor,"

I regarded it as just another expression

to call someone impoverished.

Much later I realized — its meaning had more to it,

beyond the imaginations of many

who study humanities in elite schools.

I discovered the true definition of the term

while eating my toast, sitting at the dining table

at my home, in the most affluent country of the world,

watching T.V., planning my next meal of the day.

I watch a mother make mud cakes for her family

in a remote village in Africa.

She molds the mud little by little with water

like my mother kneaded the flour dough

to make breakfast for our family every morning.

Her children eating the cake have rainbows in their eyes

without rain. Is this what being dirt poor means?

A sudden, I'm enlightened!

These children perhaps will never go to school.

They will never taste a glass of freshly pressed orange juice

or eat a boiled egg in their breakfast. There is no water in their village.

They walk miles to fetch drinking water home every day.

Eating my toast treated with imported butter,

I wondered about the taste of a mud cake,

how it is baked to perfection in the sun,

what elements of earth go into making a perfect mud cake,

what aroma releases when it melts in the mouth.

The recipe for a mud cake is nowhere to be found.

It's a delicacy, but no chef is trained to make mud cakes

in culinary schools.

No restaurant on the globe has it on its menu.

The mud cake recipe is the best-kept secret on earth,

under lock and key of the world united and defeated.


My Post Office Without a Country

—After Agha Shahid Ali

Every so often, nations fall from the world map,

as leaves and flowers fall from a tree hit by a thunderstorm.

My poetry book cannot travel to the Holy Land.

Palestine isn't in the database of the United States Postal Office.

I verify the address given to me by Mohammad.

How could a country disappear into space?

People standing in the queue look at my face.

The clerk turns the screen toward me and scrolls down.

The State of Palestine wasn't found.

My package was returned. And as I turned, I saw someone smiling at me.

Palestine exists in the twinkles of her eyes.

It exists because Mohammad lives there. He tells us the stories of his land.

It exists because Yasser Arafat came to my homeland in Keffiyeh.

It exists because I hear Palestine sing in Tarana of Rim Banna.

It exists because it burns in the eyes of Ahed Tamimi.

It exists because it lives in the hearts of five million Philistines.

I'll exit the line, but tell me first, how Palestine went missing?

I ask Handala. I ask my friend Mohammad in Ramallah,

Sartawi in Jordan and Ronni in Galilee.

I ask Shahid Ali of The Country Without a Post Office.

I ask this question to myself as I write--

My Post Office Without a Country.


In Ecstasy

It's now time for me to empty my soul,

roll into the abundance of silences,

to hear my voice.

It's now time for me to pour myself,

into the chalices of some restless hearts,

and let my intoxication be the exhilaration of others.

It's now time for me to become one, with the vastness of the ocean,

and let all the waves come crashing,

to shatter my prides.

It's now time for me to light the candles, and let myself be a firefly,

entering the periphery of your light,

and become immortal.

It's now time for me to wear the charms you gave me once,

feel the warmth of your invisible embrace,

and let my heart thaw.

It's now time for me to be, what I haven't been before,

sip the night in ecstasy,

from your sacred tranquil lips.

It's now time for me again, to write nights in your name,

and be afraid to lose,

to my stars once again.

It's now time for me to hear, the heart of the ocean

throbbing in a seashell,

washed off the shore,

a heart very similar to yours...

The Tree

It did not weep

did not plead for mercy

nor complain.

It fell silently,

the tree.

~~~

My hands,

yellow as its flesh

dripping white blood,

shuddering with

the deafening sound

of the chainsaw.

I’m the tree

and the one

who kills it.

~~~

Its blood was white.

We took away its rouge

and the greenery of its leaves.

~~~

Before the adieu,

it left me its shade,

leaves and straws for

the birds’ nests

and the last seed,

in the dried palms

of the earth’s hands.

In the seed

the mysteries of

life and death.

The day they had come

to mark red on its forehead,

it knew they would be back

soon, to behead it.

~~~

When a tree is decapitated

before the eyes of other trees

how do they feel?

When I asked this question to the trees,

in response, they stood silent

with their heads down.

~~~

They came,

took down the tree,

the sun moved to the west

and everyone left.

Only the earth remained

and me, motionless

where the tree stood once,

filled with joy and gratitude.

~~~

Was it just a coincidence

that the tree died before my eyes?

Or had it been waiting for me

as one awaits the loved ones

in final days?

Before breathing its last,

it gave me an inheritance of an epic.

~~~

Have you ever seen

the execution of a tree?

It is said that the tree

weeps all night

before the day it dies.

It knows the meaning of

the red dot on its chest.

~~~

The grass wasn’t here.

It was seeded.

Once a tree lived on this ground.

The grass is a green stole

on its tomb.

~~~

The day it’s born brings joy.

When it grows—gives flowers, fruits, and shade.

And someday, its life.

My desk is the bare chest of a fallen tree.

Laying my head on it, I can hear its heartbeats.

And leaning on the shoulders of

every window and door of my home,

I can listen to all the forests on earth

weeping together.