R&R

Today I saw...

The sun rise over the Hindu Kush

Muddy streets reflect colourful balloons

And familiar eyes in the bathroom mirror

Telling me they are weary even after sleep

Another day beckons unto all

Boys in the street throwing stones

School girls flinch as they hit their mark

The local kabob seller striking the culprits

His large stick finding its mark too

One way of meting out justice

Three women travelling in the boot of a car

Huddled behind the sedan’s open trunk door

Men inside protected from the show shower

Separated in accordance with local custom

An indifferent wind blowing from the north

The fat naked bottom of a central Asian sheep

Its carcass hanging stiffly in the cold winter air

Coals glowing red under cubes of mutton and lard

This meal more than a day’s wages for most

Give us our daily bread

A man lead his burka-blinkered women

Across a busy intersection by the mosque

Holding hands like a powder blue camel train

As motorbikes, cars and zarangs jostle

Giving an inch only under duress

And the sun going down

Behind the cold desert sands

Pink reflecting pale on snowy mountains

The night drawing in once more

Darkness and death