We have been losing Afghan wars.
Not just some red- uniformed,
Victorian empire, thinly translated
To modern day, whose upper lip barely quivers
At yet another campaign in the meaningless sand
Not even the millions of uncounted Afghan casualties,
But whole civilisations pounded from dust to finer dust.
Of Zoroaster’s birth, his fire temples,
Ancient Bactria, where Alexander the Great
married Roxanne, the local princess.
Land of Rumi of the whirling dervishes
Of tragic poet Rabia Balkhi, who signed
Her martyrdom in her own life’s blood
On the wind you may hear her songs.
Crossroads of the Silk Road,
Xuanzang’s pilgrimage passed through here,
as he carried Buddhism to China on his back.
Marco Polo called Bactria a splendid city
And, of course, the British weren’t the first.
The whirlwind that was Genghis Khan
First razed then occupied the land.
As did Timur, the Mughal empire, all.
The papers today claim Britain has
‘Wasted 20 years’ on this futile war.
And yet it is so much more. In Greece,
In Rome or Canterbury, you can see our history
As Afghanistan is bombed to dust once more
It is as if those Victorian moustaches were still
Erasing all that culture, all that glory, till only
The women’s nightmare of the Taliban
And the proud beaked stance of the Pashtun still remains.
L M Collis 16.4.2021
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