This evening I went to the second Writer's Read of the fall semester. The speaker for the evening was Sehba Sarwar, a Pakistani woman who is a poet, artist, novelist, activist, wife and mother who lives in Houston, Texas. I was lucky enough to have been invited earlier in the week to sit at the head table with the head of the Language&Literature Department, as well as Sehba.
She was wonderful, a bright and shining person who spoke thoughtfully and listened well; she read more of her fiction than her poetry, but one of the poems she read lept off the page and into my heart and I found it online when I got home. Here it is:
I-10, a ribbon stringing across the southern borders
Of the USA (los estados unidos de américa),
A freeway racing parallel to curling barbed wires and military lights
Across which are homes much like the ones on this side
Maybe more decrepit, maybe more dusty
But maybe more in touch with the sand, the earth, the cactus
And the lives lost.
I have seen the barbed wire along the rio grande between el paso and juarez
And I have heard of guns, walls and barbed wire in ramallah and jerusalem
And I know of AK47s and kalashnikovs and military checkpoints
Along kashmir, baluchistan and sindh,
Borders where sisters wait hours to see their sisters
But then are turned away.
More than anything I know children live, sleep and eat and roosters crow
On every side of the silver wire-ribbons that cut across the globe
Piercing our skin to draw blood
Forcing us to forget
That one day we will cry together when our mothers pass away.
Mera naam sehba hai
Munjho nalo sehba ahay
Mi nombre es sehba
And I don’t need to tell you, on any side of I-10
Or you, anywhere along the sharp wire ribbons that divide earth
I don’t need to tell you what I just said
Because you know on every side of the border that you-we-us-I are the same.
So put down your gun
Tear the ribbon and wear it like a roman crown over your head
And join us in los estados unidos de americas y mundo aur dunia
To build bridges and destroy walls.
-Sehba Sarwar
She was wonderful, a bright and shining person who spoke thoughtfully and listened well; she read more of her fiction than her poetry, but one of the poems she read lept off the page and into my heart and I found it online when I got home. Here it is:
I-10, a ribbon stringing across the southern borders
Of the USA (los estados unidos de américa),
A freeway racing parallel to curling barbed wires and military lights
Across which are homes much like the ones on this side
Maybe more decrepit, maybe more dusty
But maybe more in touch with the sand, the earth, the cactus
And the lives lost.
I have seen the barbed wire along the rio grande between el paso and juarez
And I have heard of guns, walls and barbed wire in ramallah and jerusalem
And I know of AK47s and kalashnikovs and military checkpoints
Along kashmir, baluchistan and sindh,
Borders where sisters wait hours to see their sisters
But then are turned away.
More than anything I know children live, sleep and eat and roosters crow
On every side of the silver wire-ribbons that cut across the globe
Piercing our skin to draw blood
Forcing us to forget
That one day we will cry together when our mothers pass away.
Mera naam sehba hai
Munjho nalo sehba ahay
Mi nombre es sehba
And I don’t need to tell you, on any side of I-10
Or you, anywhere along the sharp wire ribbons that divide earth
I don’t need to tell you what I just said
Because you know on every side of the border that you-we-us-I are the same.
So put down your gun
Tear the ribbon and wear it like a roman crown over your head
And join us in los estados unidos de americas y mundo aur dunia
To build bridges and destroy walls.
-Sehba Sarwar
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