Pashtun Provenance

A cloak-and-dagger dance around honor Singing lowly to no one, she puffs her blue burqa This pot I boil is much like me A meal of warmed flesh waiting for a hunger to feed There is mystery under the moon Your eyes can't adjust as night unveils my aroma Pashtun men think they know these women But like Russians in the 80's they see enigma My lover gives me beast and beauty Body and soul, for his love, I am like Fatima To imply that I have not free will She said, is to say a plant is a better manna What faint whisper reaches heavenward Lets God know his daughter has no more paranoia The IED you dug by moonlight Flowered that little boy stuck now in my retina My life is my heart, painted on skin I brush myself to express inner soul with henna Landays belong to no one old man Without pencil or stick, free thought overcomes dogma Rebellion simmers underneath you Grind as you might, the pestle only brings forth flour I am a woman of my homeland That tradition and family make my persona © Goode Guy 2013-07-07 Landay - 2 line / 9 then 13 syllables / many end "ma" or "na" http://www.poetryfoundation.org/media/landays.html