Yeny Tejada
An Anti War Poem
My Birds have Vacated the Sky
Dedicated to Yeny Tejada, A prominet poet, Writer and literary figure from Peru
War changed everything for me
Even my identity
My features
Are threatened by alienation
I’m standing on my land
Propped up on one leg
The other one
I bestowed to a landmine
Which was begging in the bazaar of Yemen!
I’m scavanging for my doors and walls
From the rubble
That’s scattered from Homs to Badakhshan
I have no home on earth
My identity is a refugee
I’m facing the embarrassment of empty pockets!
In Ramadi
Where there is fixed the tombstone of communal grave
Was once a city
(a city splashing with the radiance of glittering bodies)
My glowing hearth has been doused
My mother’s roti is no more available to me
I’m surviving on international charity!
My lush green fields have assumed deadly slumber
My birds have vacated their share of the sky
For drones
My friends have
Gradually gone to complete non-existence
I’m lonelier than Zahid Dar
My tongue has forgotton soundness
Upon my worn out shoulder
Is the package of forgotton features
In place of my home
There’s only left a courtyard
(without its fourwalls)
And the half burnt frock is
Hung from the clothesline in the courtyard
Whose owner is made into a slave
And led towards the human market
Of new Baghdad
Translated by: Sara Ali Khan
Poem by by Dr. Jawaz Jaffri
Beautiful poems that refocusses our eye on something that is not brautifil, that is horrible, destructive and painful.