by Badri Raina
When the blood-dimmed tide
Creeps under the door,
Malala appears, quells the yellow
Beast with unwavering dark eye,
And simply says “no more.”
Which is when years of fearful
Preparation by Reason’s brave
Handfuls come to contagious fruition.
Naked new-born babes ride
The blast of innocence, all Malala,
Willing to take the disarmed bullet
In head, limb, gullet.
Where all seemed bust, destiny gels
Into a handful of dust.
Malala avatar, living or dying,
You have raised a cowering nation
Out of dithering and prevarication.
And with that reborn Pakistan,
Billions in the days to come will learn
To be soldiers of the sanity you spawn.
May you be blessed, child of indomitable soul,
May you live old to see the irreversible
Spread of the light that speaks from your eye,
May the nations never turn from the goal
For which you may so readily die.
–October 13, 2012
1 comment:
Badri Raina, a keen political observer and literary critic from the Indian subcontinent, has, in this deeply touching poem, shown the role and courage of a 14-year-old Pakistani girl, Malala Yousufzai, who was shot by some religious fanatics and is now in a critical condition. As a young girl she stood for the right of girls to go to school and get education without being harassed by ignorant religious maniacs in Swat and other parts of North West Pakistan.
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