backs against the tide

holding back the tide

backs against monsoon mud

decades of Kashmir tears

swarm Pakistani streets

smother drowning schools

mothers and babies clinging to trees

roaring rivers

oceans of water

every night it comes

every afternoon more Sindhis disappear

and Karachi grieves

and Islamabad has no plans

and Delhi reconsiders karma

these are biblical times

these rains remind us of our mortality

reminds us that borders

as treaties

merely wash away

promises mean nothing

sunlight erases whoever journeys into the night drizzle

turning into teeming torrents of truth

oh! this world cannot betray

nor turn our backs

Pakistan is the wet world

Pakistan dripping endless green tears

golden silk saris used as sponges

steel poles and beams

useless

no structures

basmati fields washed into the ocean

chapatti fires cook no more

Pakistan gushing endless green tears

as the world idles on

till this eternal deluge inexorably shrivels,

evaporates

9/12/10

Delray Beach, FL

(for the thousands who were washed away in the Pakistani floods)

Audio