Song From A Barren Land
I can only imagine
His lament. Barely a thousand
years robbed his people of their stars.
Now, each grain of sand turn’d crimson trying
to grasps yesteryear’s recitations.
This sacred land is doomed
For among the lusty steel bars, cries forc’d
out of man’s fear and ignorance. Once
Babies were killed for being female, women
murdered by the thousand for, they say, honour.
Is it divine order that prophets
were born among them who’re so crass
and disunited. They sowed new fences
Each one fertilized by increasingly divine dollars.
In turn, transforming their own illusions.
Those grain of sands, still laments
Their treasures stripped naked by images
of Abu ghraib. Only this wayfarer, plods
on, knowing that each new step’s a promise
for to recite means a tryst with him.
Ahmad Abang
Daro, Malaysia.