That Woman Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

That woman
Sitting on the ground
She is young but looks older
A hundred times
With bare feet
Her sheep
Her treasures
Around her
The stones which are frozen
The sheep have developed long furs
Nature’s compensation
Their legs gone very thin
The source of milk
Think of milk in that village
Where some demons visit at night
And some spirits of the dead too
The woman who has grown in valor
Her man she has seen once
Who has gone to the seas
She only overhears about him
She speaketh not, for the honor of the man
And the honor of other men
Parasites and mud eaters
She grows into the earth
Roots and some branches
A bird, some other birds too
The whole day is spent
But she can grow flowers like almond trees
Without leaves
Some birds can visit her
And a nest
She had been dreaming of
Dust is salt
She mixes it up with water and sometimes milk
She does not know the taste of milk
Some onions
From the roots she has grown
And a sheepskin dried
With salt and then pushed to the roof
Her possession for water is precious
Her husband has married three other women
The local priest who has gone political
A parasite dies
She is to mourn
Feasts and mourning
She gets food in the feasts
In return for wild mourning
Her husband
Now turned a preacher
And the parasites, turned devils
The woman raising a number of children
Like a fox in her cave
The roots grown longer and far
In the dryness of land where there are stones and rocks
There is also war
In that dusty land and rocks
With no water
Some other people
Who pretend to know politics
And reforms
Vie for power
Over the woman
And her land and long grown roots
A flower she has grown and a flower without leaves
Her old friend, that dusty bird
The preacher and the politician
And the one who says he knows and has been to some places
A cold wind and that one flower wither
A jackal howling nearby
The preacher with perfume that makes you
Vomit
Some lies and the plight of the flowers
Near fruition
This land is in the possession of some small people
Who have named road crossings after their names
Eaters of the flesh of jackals and foxes and sheep
Another girl is born
To turn into a woman