Blue Poem by Pierre Dumaine

The sky was burqa-blue
when they carried your body
out of your home. Blue-on-blue,
background and foreground melded,
and you vanished from the shouldered bier,
enveloped by the heavens.

You were only 25.
Recalcitrant.
Female.
Educated.
You had to die,
Poet of the Gule Dudi, Dark Flower.

No, my sweet, not Dark Flower, but
Bright Flower!

Daughter of the sun and moon an stars,
your name will live forever on the lips of
those who loved you and your poetry,
and who came to mourn you in Afghan's Herat.

Herat! Sad city.
Herat! A poet's tomb.
A thousand years will not erase your infamy,
nor the glory of her name.