PLANT TREES NOT BOMBS IN AFGHANISTAN

[youtube=http://youtu.be/NsvgjgWiqA0]

that shook our senses,
direction-less,
nonetheless directed by fellow humans.
Our eyes darted from mysterious fears
of losing one another.

“There’s been an explosion. Don’t come this way!”,
torn by our unspoken wish to huddle together,
as if madness could be scattered
among the fragile shells of ourselves.
as if we could
dream the unknown away.

We couldn’t,
the vision of connecting with other humans via Skype
stressing our time schedule,
as if there was a timetable
that could be kept in war,
as if sanity could be pursued
when our sight was wet.

My temper broke again,
Ali began to punch the wall,
Abdulhai bravely confessed disappointment with self,
and then, Faiz’s tears opened Ali’s river,
of sobs that were hard for me to hear,
though I knew then
that I was embracing love’s defiance.

I saw that yesterday too.
Each of us,
not far from the burnt out and rocket damaged house of death,
planting trees,
with the street kids Martin, Mahdi and Bahran,
then the officials, the police, students, a street girl named Gulsom.
They wanted life too.

Finally, an Afghan lady came,
stoically holding a sapling,
not a word,
but a hundred hurts and wishes
were in her posture.
With steady hands used to making bread,
she planted roots for all of us.

From Jan Viklund’s Facebook page.

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