Seeweed Eyes Poem by Ailla Rut

10.6.12
Seaweed eyes
Who never say why:
Why is an alien
From democracy.
She was married at 10,
Had her first daughter at 13,
A second one at 15
Now she is the mother
Of five lake-eyed daughters.
As the blue lake in the immensity of sand-clay hills.
Eyes who never say why—
Why is an alien
From democracy.
She could not have a son.
Now in the same hut
The husband had brought another wife.
Who gave him a son.
He kicked his seaweed-eyed wife,
His five lake-eyed daughters.
They roamed the dry ground streets
In their mendicant burqas.
They were saved by an an NGO.
They were introduced to
Education.
Mother and daughters
Marvelled.
The sea-weed eyes
Were
Dawn on high peaks
In Afghanistan.
The lake stirred.
The daughters were the life
In the immensity
Of beauty.
Mother and daughters
Laughed.
Their laughter reached
The dawn
The birds
The lakes
The mountains
In the grandeur.
Then the husband
Came.
He cut his wife’s nose and ear
With his working knife.
The seaweed eyes darkened
Tears clutched her lower lids
Scared to fall on new territory.
They could not hold on.
They fell down.
Democracy brought laughter
But now was a cherished enemy
Of pain.
The husband was caught
Tried and imprisoned.
The seaweed-eyed lady
Was given a new face
From the artist hands
Of plastic surgeons.
Their blue eyes showed her respect,
Not the cruel blueness
In the eyes
Of her husband,
Of her father,
And grandfather.
He came to cut her
With their blessing.
They had a chance
To live in the realm
Of democracy.
The lady and her daughters
Refused.
They were ready
To face pain
Cruelty
But they were fighting
For democracy
At the core of their womanhood
The fittest will survive
In Beloved Afghanistan
Where extremism is deity
And reason and logic
A hunted foe.
Their beautiful eyes reflected
A cascade of emotions
But they had
Freed their fettered souls
To live and enjoy the grandeur of nature
And life
In the immediacy of death
In Beloved Afghanistan.