I have written many angry words, over the years...the death of Nadia Anjuman left me silent and unable to write for weeks. When I could finally pick up my pen, I wrote "Beyond the Veil" and many other poems, highly critical of religion's degradation of women; attacking all of them - Islam, Judiasm, Christianity, with equal fervor. Misogyny kills and often walks hand in hand, with religion.
Tonight, I am pensive and have decided to let Nadia Anjuman's words speak, for herself. Her words resonate and they live despite her death. She was a unique poet; her words touched and inspired me. Women frequently die, at the hands of their husbands...being only possessions...
Please, read them and be touched. Read them and be moved...read them and be angry...read them and remember, women are your mothers, sisters, and daughters...and we are slaughtered and murdered, hidden and subdued, for the crime of being defiantly female...let all the veils, both literal and figurative, be shredded and burned...
by Nadia Anjuman
I am caged in this corner
full of melancholy and sorrow ...
my wings are closed and I cannot fly ...
I am an Afghan woman and so must wail.
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No desire to open my mouth
What should I sing of...?
I, who am hated by life.
No difference to sing or not to sing.
Why should I talk of sweetness,
When I feel bitterness?
Oh, the oppressor's feast
Knocked my mouth.
I have no companion in life
Who can I be sweet for?
No difference to speak, to laugh,
To die, to be.
Me and my strained solitude.
With sorrow and sadness.
I was borne for nothingness.
My mouth should be sealed.
Oh my heart, you know it is spring
And time to celebrate.
What should I do with a trapped wing,
Which does not let me fly?
I have been silent too long,
But I never forget the melody,
Since every moment I whisper
The songs from my heart,
Reminding myself of
The day I will break this cage,
Fly from this solitude
And sing like a melancholic.
I am not a weak poplar tree
To be shaken by any wind.
I am an Afghan woman,
It only makes sense to moan
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I was discarded everywhere, the poetic whisper in my soul died.
Do not search for the meaning of joy in me, all the joy in my heart died.
If you are looking for stars in my eyes, that is a tale that does not exist.
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You, exiles of the mountains of oblivion
You, diamonds of your names sleeping in quagmire of silence
You the ones your memories faded, memories of light blue
In the mind of muddy waves of forgotten sea
Where are your clear flowing thoughts?
Where did your peace-marked silver boat moon craft go?
After this death-giving freeze, the sea clams
The clouds, if they clear heart from bitterness
If daughter of moonlight brings kindness, induces smiles
If the mountain softens heart, grows green and
Turns fruitful
One of your names, above the mountain peaks
Will become the sun?
Sunrise of your memories
Memories of light blue
In the eyes of tired-of-flood-water fish and
Scared of rain of darkness
Will it become a sight of hope?
******************************************
There is no desire to speak again; whom to ask, what to say?
I, who was treated ill, what should I not read, what not to say?
What should I tell that honey for me is like poison!
I cry; the fist of the cruel! It teases. Would I not say?
There is no one who knows my affliction, none I trust;
For what should I cry, laugh, die, and live today?
I and this faith; the grief of my failure, and this wishfulness;
I cannot do anything; and the words of affection, if only I could say.
O my heart, there was spring and there was this season of comfort.
But I cannot fly anymore. I want to know to whom should I say ...
Though I am quiet and cannot remember any song,
Yet all the time, something stirs in my heart that I should say.
Ah, remember the good day when this cage was broken;
That loneliness is gone, my delight, I sing the cares away.
I am a frail stick that trembles in air each time;
An Afghan daughter who can say wherever she needs to say.
