Note To Afghanistan Poem by David Abrahams

Note to Afghanistan -

You stole my Mothers’ sons –
You prick -
Spilled their blood in fallow fields of poppy
On the dusty plains of hopelessness
In the hot breath of hate that blows
down Maiwand’s wadis.

Like ingrate sons of goats you chomp
The only hands and eat the only hearts
of those who’d help you walk on your hind legs,
while groveling below the licked boots
pinioned firmly on the necks
of your children’s future and the dignity of your women.

But I persist. I do. I meander up your mountains,
Crawl your karez lines
Dash through your deserts
Orbit your orchards
Flop though your fields
Spin through your cities
And beat, beat, beat my boys against the mud mounds
That surround
Your vile villages.

While you spit, spit, spit
And spit in my eye. Curse me non-stop
And feed me to the media wolves
For deaths of innocents in a land the word forgot.

I will not stop
I will not be cowed
I will not deter
I will give –

My young men in trade
For seeds of hope.

Plant them in the opium and weed.
Plant them in the open sewers.
Plant them in bomb rigged schools.
Plant them in the Thursday night back room rendezvous.
- in the burqas
and in the meanness of your open, grasping needy leaders’ palms.

And only when they push beyond your callous crust
Germinating culture and a path to something akin
To life.

Will I depart satisfied.

- America.