The Damage is Ours Alone – A Poem by Zabirah Fazili
There are no suitable words to describe or introduce Zabirah Fazili’s latest poem. Within such verses one finds an utterance that every Kashmiri mother, tending to her family, has brought to her lips—with the ringing of gunfire in the horizon or an eerie silence ushered in by the passing of daylight
On a cold January morning
at the break of dawn
Mother's dreams break
and she wakes up breathing heavily
and sweating
"kus taain morukh"
someone's been killed.
We all sit huddled
wondering if the dream
is an omen
or if it's only Mother's fears
speaking to her mind.
"Kus taain morukh"
Mother repeats.
At the breakfast
Mother sits unsettled
her hair hangs down
in ringlets and the sweat
on her brow glows
like the horror in her eyes.
"Kus taain morukh"
Mother repeats.
We all leave Mother
and her words
keep her company.
She bleeds before
the wounds appear.
At dusk we all return
except Abbu.
We engage with good thoughts
until mother repeats
"kus taain morukh"
And her fears come alive
at moon rise
as Abbu is brought home
in a gunny bag:
a collateral damage
no
the damage is ours alone.
