Jade

HEADLINE: “Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh Witness Fresh Snowfall, Border Roads Closed” 

Winter comes

Snow covers the plains, 

Blankets the saffron fields in ice. 

The world stops 

But not for you and I. 

No more

        Music or words

Busy markets,

        Wedding announcements. 

The world is closed to us–and us to them.

Spring returns, 

And with it, a tendril of 

hope

Blossoming like 

saffron in fields.

But flowers do not grow here anymore;

Blood has soaked the soil too long, 

Ice withdrawing to reveal

           Children’s bodies

Frozen still in time– 

stolen. 

Free Verse

BOTEH

They call them

Paisleys 

Rather than

Boteh. 

B l o s s o m i n g         almonds, 

Stretched across a land

Embroidered in

Threads of 

                Red,

                        Gold, 

                                Black.

Boteh

Forms our 

                        Past

                Present

                                Resistance. 

Buteh

Always flowering

    For–  

Ramadan

Nikah & Lagan

Objection to–

Occupation.

Buteh

Weaves                 around

Our 

Bodies

  Shawls

Graves.   

Free Verse

KASHIDA

Salaam Agha-jan, 

Did you hear they banned our kashida?

Our endless thread, 

We loom our shawls 

Kashida, 

In one single thread

Our history embroidered,  

Timeless in

Gold

and 

Red.

Kashida, passed

Through generations–

Stolen

Through genocide. 

Kashida:

Banned 

Dangerous

                 A sign

                                 Of our 

                                                 Resistance. 

Zuva,   

Our nights have been

                  Stolen 

Our days 

                         Set ablaze.

Existence 

Is my cottage industry now

           I weave myself 

                     Into shawls;

                         I resist. 

Free Verse