For my Kashmiri Muslim woman
Would she seldom think that she,
Divided by a melancholic rage
Lost imagery of vanity
Between whom she is and what she was
Oh the repute of a heart wrenching subject
In the end just a ‘subject’ she
Enthusiast’s zeal for a political tirade
What better than a poet’s fascination?
We condemned all that
Oh now we are trapped
The lover’s heart is agile
As is art to the artist
A woman remains to a man
Whose side are we on?
Please just say
Who are we now?
Why have we not found a male subject?
What glory are we after all?
Why have we not seen an obsession of that sort?
It was murmured to me in a cold wind of a solitary night
Oh those super humans [men] have the charge
But listen o my frantic caller to fairness
You have the charm of a pied piper
You are the leader of disenfranchised
You are a reason for your own smile
You are a free woman of a non-free world
If you take to silence
Who should whirl then the wind?
I ask of you O the knower of the truth?
Where shall you lay in your march to exalt?
What is sanctioned in a divine decree?
Where are you in a slumber of indefinite tonight?
Read the passages of sorrow’s agony
Your vale is circumcised
Do not then ask of showers of filthy might
I speak to you as an outsider
What times, what are these times?
Hold fast to the rope of ‘Allah’
Hold fast to your subject ‘mankind’
You are no one’s mother
But a woman in your own right
Be not deluded, you are to outshine!
Inshah Malik
22 November 2011
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