It is so hard to write or post anything this week as the terrible building collapse in Savar and the terrible human tragedy, the people dead, still trapped, searching desperately for loved ones seem to fill everything. It is still too raw to be writable, but any other topic seems irrelevant in comparison. So I post a simple poem of protest at injustice and for now leave the journalists and photographers to to say what can be said at this time.

Can you not see?

Do you not see that there are changes ahead?

The smog is laden with dread  and the fish are all dead

Can you not feel that there is bad news to come?

There are kids on the run and the sound of a gun

Can you not sense that people don’t feel the same?

That it’s not just a shame where there’s no one to blame

Do you believe that you’ll be let off the hook?

There’s a child with a book, can you not read that look?

Do you not see that we must all raise our voice?

There is really no choice, got to challenge their noise

Can you not tell that it is time to speak out?

As the storm blows about, got to step out and shout

Can you not smell that there is filth in the air?

Big business won’t share, politicians don’t care

Do you not sense that it is time to think clear?

To consider what’s dear and to speak without fear

Do you believe that we make an impact?

If we all make a pact holding on to the facts

Will you be the change that you’re hoping to see?

just a drop in the sea is the start that we need

A thought for those in Savar today, facing the horror.

A restless sleep  – I know that nearby in Sava there are those who did not sleep last night – and those who will not wake this morning

The last weeks we have had much political unrest and a number of Hatals, or general strikes, in Dhaka so I have hardly been out of the city. I miss the countryside and the busy, hardworking farmers we work with. This week’s poem talks about the feeling I get when I get out of Dhaka and when we finally get out of the vast sprawling city and into the countryside.

Leaving the city

After high-rises, massive concrete apartment blocks,

Grubby Lego-block towns with washing hanging down

Corrugated iron worlds stumbling on forever

But after the brick fields’ belching chimneys

After the dumps with herds of black scavenging pigs

After the last rickshaw graveyard

At last we see the green fields

Emerald green paddy fields

Vibrating rice growth so lush the plants hustle for space

Brown cloud frays and light brightens as villages replace towns

Dark patterned shadows in bamboo groves,

Deep green ponds offer cool invitations from the road side,

Where ducks waddle and goats rub lazy tree trunks

People bend tenderly, tending their crops, milking their cows  

Narrow tree-lined lanes tempt you away from the highway

The gleaming black of a fork-tailed drongo flashes through ripening grain

Black feathered twirl and one short-horned grasshopper meets his maker

Drongo, having paid for her seat, returns to the perch placed for her use

Life slows to organic speed where crops grow and time is measured in seasons

Where big wheeled buffalo carts determine speed

Families gather in shady swept yards to eat food they have grown

from seeds they have sown

We’re just back from a couple of days on Bangladesh’s number one local tourist destination; Cox Bazaar. This beach is apparently the longest beach in the world, and a place where people can escape the city and experience some beach life. For us, it was a very different type of beach life, with most people standing or walking on the beach and those few who brave the waves do so fully dressed. It is a unique place, and I find, best appreciated if you see it as a child growing up in Dhaka might see it….

Cox Bazaar

See it through the eyes of a child if you can;

a child raised in big city apartment cage

An apartment lately filled with beach anticipation

This beach, reached by crowded nighttime bus

A bus where you sleep, upright, clutching your bag

To see when you arrive, sore and grouchy from the drive

To see, to see at last, strange and vast

The sea

See it through the eyes of a child if you can;

A child soaked in rules of culture, faith, society,

All society on holiday, transformed on naked beach

On sandy beach, mother’s hair across her face

In bright cotton sari, laughing, submersing in waves

To see as you watch, half thrilled, half shocked,

To see, to see at last, strange and vast

The sea

See it through the eyes of a child if you can;

A child photographed in waves, small and wet

All wet from splashes, laughter, sweat

Shocked by power of roaring, slapping waves

Waves and wind unregulated, wild

To feel, pulled and wrenched, half scared, all drenched

To feel, to feel at last, strong and vast

The sea

This week, another poem resulting from the prompts provided by the wonderful ladies of Writer’s International, and reflecting the changing state and status and role that I face as my middle years roll on and my sons grow up.

Yesterday

Yesterday I thought I could hold on to you,

keep you like something that was all my own

That childhood would stretch on and on like that beach where we played,

like those summer evenings when the sun just wouldn’t go down

 Childhood a permanent condition not a passing state of affairs

Despite your undeniable height and the deepening of your voice

I would always be waking you, calling you,

time to shower

bus is here…

Yesterday, I was serving treats for you at the end of busy school days,

arguing about forgotten homework and unobserved curfews

Today those small shoes in the hallway,

And going upstairs to call you down for tea

Your arm so comfortable around her shoulder

so naturally

she leans slightly towards you

Today I recognize that yesterday was yesterday

Today a new day has arrived