Mother Says …

Mother says

Before going out, look at the sky

Because death on silver wings

May hover high above, waiting

And come down like a thousand

Angels of doom.

But it can happen even when you are at home.

 

Mother says

Stay away from weddings, and from funerals

Anywhere people gather, because

When people gather, that’s when

Bad things happen, like bombs from the air.

But how can I avoid them?

The funerals are everywhere.

 

Mother says

When gathering firewood on the hillside

When getting water from the well

When playing with your friends

Be careful, because to be out in the open, 

Even if you’re young, is dangerous

And punished by loss of life and limb.

 

Mother says

If they come in the night,

If they break down the door

And enter with dogs and guns,

Don’t look at them, and above all

Don’t scream or run.

Because if you do, bad things can happen.

 

Mother says

Your father is not with us, but it was not by choice.

He did not leave us deliberately alone.

He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time

And paid dearly for that mistake.

Called an enemy, he sleeps this night

Under the stony ground.

 

Mother says

Look at this picture, look at this girl

Hugging her father’s leg, staring tearfully

Out of the magazine page.

She doesn’t want her father to go away to war.

She doesn’t want her father to come

Across the world, to us, to our land.

 

Mother says

Look at this girl, blonde and young

On the other side of the world. Frightened, too.

You could have been friends,

Mother says, and though you are a world apart,

There is a little girl

Like you.

 

                                         

   Copyright B Purkayastha 2012

Tags: bill the butcher, children, life, loss, parents, poetry, war, war machine

• March 14, 2012
• activism, freedom, poetry, war machine
• 25 Comments