Kabul

On May 31st 2017 a massive truck bomb exploded in Kabul, killing 90 and injuring many more.

As we reel from our own atrocity and we argue about red, blue, green or yellow it barely registered on our consciousness. Yet this occurs regularly in that city and whatever proxy wars are being fought in their land it's the 4.6 million people of Kabul, most of whom just want to live their lives like normal people, who bear the brunt.



(c) Reuters

Kabul
If a city could speak, what would you say?
You have witnessed so much
Your buildings, your people have come and gone
But do you have words for us today?
Empires rise and fall
Conquerers themselves defeated
But you remain, indefatigable, ever present
From the east, the west, the north and south
they come to control you
to lay waste or to ply trade
to push their idea of God or simply plunder

In old Hindi texts they called you
an ideal city, a vision of paradise set in the mountains
Well, they did not see you today.
they would not understand a truck
they would not conceive a bomb
they would not describe as paradise
a child torn into parts and ripped from this world
not ideal Kabul, as you well know
All for yet another pointless cause
another tribe just seeking to control
whatever the cost

In the scheme of things, Kabul
Are we mere specks in time?
Unnoticed, flickering into brief bright light
extinguished without thought or consequence?
Until the angel of death truly arrives
as atom splits and you can
finally rest in peace

If you could speak, Kabul, what would you say?
Do you have words for us, today?