Afghan women outside the Mosque in Mazar-I-Sharif. Taken 1976. Photo: Bob McKerrow
I will never forget that snowy winter in Mazar I Sharif, Northern Afghanistan. in 1993- 94 when I met Waheed and his brother Samay Hamed. Waheed was a scrawny 17 year old who had learnt some BBC English. The killing in Kabul had reached hundreds a day and as various factions fought, people fled to Mazar-I-Sharif for sanctury wher ethere was relative peace. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people needed assistance from the Red Cross, so I moved their to increase the volume of our humanitarian assistance.
I employed Waheed as an interpretor and his brother Samay Hamed worked as a Doctor for the Afghan red Crescent Society.
When I published my book of poems and photographs in 2003, Mountains of Our Mind, I included 12 of (Abdul) Samay Hamed's poems. Since then he has gone on to be one of Afghanistan's leading poets.
The other day Samay Hamed wrote to me and shared me his lates poems. He is happy for me to share them with you.
Can I see what I wish?
I see my mother watching my gritty grave
on this grizzly ground
She is pouring tears and water into the broken pot
for the desert-pigeons
I can even sense the fragrance of her face
The fragrance of her old cloth - flowered
with colorful patches-
I see my father selling left-over parts of the mortar-shell
to the iron-peddler to buy a nipple
for my month-old sister
I see my brother making bricks from dust and sweat
to rebuild our house
He is making, too, a big brick for my grave
to prevent whirlwinds destroying my silence
From this gritty grave on this grizzly ground
I can feel my playmate chewing a fresh leaf,
riding on a wooden horse
I see our neighbors praying for my little soul
while she crosses the singing bridge
I see every one in the violet face of our village
after violence
But
Can I ever see my month-old sister
sitting with my mother on the roof of our home,
inviting small birds to a morning snack?
With not a single bullet to interrupt them?
Can I?
The Afghan Woman
The Afghan woman in a blue veil
looks like a piece of sky torn off and fallen
on the smoking street
she is trying to rise again
but it seems that a wave is frozen
The Afghan woman,
When she reaches her hand out from her cloth-cell to
to sell a chewing-gum
Several small and colorful rainbows
dance round her wrist
The Afghan woman
hides her love in the shoes she has never worn
Pays her father’s debt with her virgin dreams
Tells her problems to a cloudy mirror
in the dark corner of a basement
The Afghan woman
Is cooking
Waving
Sewing
Cleaning
Washing
Watching
Nursing
But still not working!
A baby on her left arm
A teenage boy in her right hand
She is running faster then machineguns
and
The bridge is crossing the Afghan woman!
The Mosque in Balkh, near Mazar-I-Sharif. Photo: Bob McKerrow
Ouch! Telephone cards!
The orphan boy is shouting from his shirt
of dust and smoke:
Telephone cards! Telephone cards!
He runs after the sleepless cars
He follows the waving baskets of grapes
He stands in front of a shop
full of perfume and shooting stars
The shopkeeper hits at him with a fly-swat
Ouch! Telephone cards! Telephone cards!
Since he was 5 years old
he has been selling hundreds of telephone cards
But his own second-hand mobile had never rung!
We have to believe
The black and white film of the night
is always the same here
Just its red burning subtitles change
Sometimes they change so horribly that you want
to write under the window :
Minus 18-years old!
It is difficult, but we have to believe
there is a lover plying guitar with her/his
blood-lightings behind this wall
It is difficult, but we have to believe
this sky, covered by red full-stops of bullets
Will turn to a poetry collection of galaxies again
The window will open us towards the fresh breath
of hidden forests
The door will welcome sunny smiles
It is difficult, but we have to believe
a silken child is opening the cage of our bones
to emerge like a free-form Haiku
To translate us for ourselves
In spite of our difficulties we must believe
Samay Hamed (l) and Waheed Warastra (r)
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