Blushing in dawn coloured splendour

the Hindu Kush awakens above morning's

murmured salaams. Taru Buz Khan Street's ubiquitous

teahouses are filling. In quickening wisps

and flicks, eyes inside the burqa look out

upon the Bagh-e Babur. Shivers of sadness

waken her, for once again men assail her

sleep and she dreams of killing scorpions.

They damn her for a beggar while feeling

for her sex. Beatings, abuse, shaming pain yet

still she comes to dusty streets, where Babur's

tomb resides amidst barbarism of a worldly ilk...

"If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, oh it is this, oh it is this!"

Epitaph for a Mughal Emperor; Alms, alms for your soul.

A brotherhood of misery enshrouds the city

as her gentle luthier bereft of slender fingers

shorn for a dogma gone wild, wallows

in nightmares: provider bereft of manhood

scarred stumps decry a cruelty, adrift from

holy ethos stretching before and after Babur.

A bridge broken at both ends and

still she dreams of killing scorpions.