A poem by Benazir Bhutto

tx_ned · #1 Tuesday, December 28, 2010

By Benazir Bhutto

When the world was still to be born

When Adam was still to receive his form

Then my relationship began

When I heard the Lord’s voice

A voice sweet and clear

I said “yes” with all my heart

And formed a bond with the land I love

When all of us were one

My bond then began

An exile now by destiny

I am nearer home than my heart’s beat

I wonder: when will I be free

To return to Larkana

From dust to dust

Loved ones return

To what they were

When will I walk home from Arab lands

To my own sweet Motherland.

Waiting for news in dreams and day

Waiting for messengers in dreams and day

When will the message come

Taking me from here to there

I want the answer to my heart

I want to pass God’s test

O God, I await the messenger

Taking me to where I belong

Although the tyrants do not care

Strands of white my hair now shows

My face is gaunt with sadness

I to my people want to go

I came in the winter of repression

I pray to return in different times

Like the joy of a seasonal rain

The peoples support I will reclaim.

Almighty God,

Let Mother’s sickness not worsen in exile

Trapped in a mind wanting to forget

A heart weeping for young sons killed

O let Mother first her homeland see

O where is my husband gone?

His life’s prime and his grace?

Prison Walls confine him

Court rooms frustrate him

Judges are frightened

Courage has fled

Salaries are more important

Than honour for which men gave lives

Pakistan, my health is worn

My joy is gone

And yet my heart is strong

For the fight

For our people lost rights

Each day I smile for the world,

For my children and my self

They ask: when can we return?

I speak of justice fled

From hearts of men

Into the breasts of beasts

I tell them

We will smile and we will eat

When freedom from chains is freed

I think of the poor people

A better fate they deserve

Than the military conqueror’s boots

Yet the lust for land grows

Plazas and Plots for the elite lot

Government homes too

Not one but two

All on starving backs of people robbed

The sweet lands lie parched

For water people pray

The crops perish

The cattle die

The stoves grow cold

As labour is sent home

Fair Pakistan’s face is blotted

Mug shots and finger prints are demanded

Worshippers live in fear and dread

Tenants are ejected

Soldiers in snows abandoned

The poets in the mountains and the deserts

Speak of another time

When the country and the individual had respect

Before the Benazir Government left

One pension is too little for some

One state, two jobs, two salaries and two pensions

For retired Khaki specials

Democracy is for those in Mufti

Dictatorship the dream of Generals in Khaki

The British left last century

Their space the Khaki filled

The Father died too quickly

In an ambulance in Karachi

One day the tyrants will depart

Public opinion will set us free

There will be dancing in the streets,

Music and song

Laughter will fill the air

As people rejoice in their destiny

Larkana, Loved-one, I remember

The sweet scent of roses

Of fresh rain on desert sand

Of trees washed by nature’s hand

Away I live in a mansion grand

But I long to campaign

On long and rocky roads

In bumpy jeep rides

With flags and banners

With selfless zeal to change

The sad present

Into a smiling future

I want to breathe the breath

Of home,

a breath both fair and fine

My spirit is in one place

My body in another

My mind torn asunder

The Elections were so Unfair

Made of Broken Promises

Billions spent in marketing

A dictatorship as a democracy

That too unsuccessfully.

The European Union called Foul

So did the Office of the Commonwealth

Boxes were filled

Ballots torn

Peoples verdict shorn

By cowards masquerading as patriots

The presidential palace is ugly

In a land with widespread poverty

Parliament has yet to dress itself

With Constitutional power

The phoenix rises from the ashes

Peoples Power will be born again

Centres of learning

I will build for the children of the poor

Provide the aged and the young

Dignity, hope and security

We will raise buildings

Where there are deserts

And stop the weeping of the women of the land

Cry not

For change is in our hands

To reject wrong and embrace right

These days of despots will soon go

Just as other despots did

Memory forever recalls Quaid e Awam

The sword of truth

Who gave his life

So we could live

With legal rights and economic security

With knowledge and Opportunity

With representation and success

With peace and with progress

His name will forever shine

Who can forget him

That historical memory embraces

Forever in its folds.

He who wore threads of fine gold

Tore them for prison cells

He who slept in silken sheets and fed with silver spoons

Threw them aside for the darkness of the death cell

Defying death

The rulers offer comfort

In return they demand conscience

Don’t offer comfort

To history’s children

To the brave and the bold

The Kurds fought for decades

The Kashmiris do too

The Palestinians refused to surrender

In every continent

In every era

The brave and the bold

Carved history with their bare hands

One has might

The other right

One has the sword

The other the pen

Guns rust and fall apart

Ideas live forever

Tyrant: do not offer comfort

Comfort leaves me cold

Much dearer do I hold

Marvi’s ancestral shawl

Symbol of our Treasure

From Marvi I learnt

From past mystic saints

From my dear brother Shah I learnt

That handsome youth who fought another tyrant

That

Were I to breathe my last, living

Away from the home I loved

My body won’t imprison me.

Shah returned home while his soul went free

No stranger to the soil

Embracing his body in death

Making it part of the legends of our land

When his last breath came

We carried him to the hidden coolness of the desert sand

Pride and sadness mixed in our hearts

Swaying emotions

Knowing that his life was given

For a clear cause of liberation

From a Dictator’s occupation

We buried him lovingly

In the land that was his

In a sea of people

That loved him

For his life

And for his death

Killed and yet the struggle lived

The cranes fly to their native hills

My heart longs to fly with them

Invisible chains

Hold me prisoner

The wounds of the past

Fester again

For my country and me

As I see people denied rights

Denied opportunities

Youth looking for hope

Democracy separated from the polity

Dictatorship cuts cruelly to the bone

Undermining the economy

Undermining the society

Introducing suicide

Economic suicide for those too poor to live

Political suicide for asymmetric warfare

Joy left when the stove turned cold

Joy fled when the church and hospital blew

Some sent messages

To forget about politics

To leave the people

To find happiness

They thought it foolish

That the weight of persecution

Could be borne

With a Mother ill

And children small

With the pain of exile

Of a husband separated by prison walls.

They thought it generous

To offer freedom for abandonment

The abandonment of a people, of a land

Of a struggle, of a dream

Of principles and of conscience

I thought it wrong

I know I will return

On a wave of peoples support

Led by the bravest Party of them all

A Party of martyrs

A Party of struggle

A Party that serves

A Party of the people

My enemies wish I never was born

For them it was a torture and a shame

That I became

The first woman leader of a Muslim State

Crumbling centuries of control

Triumphantly proclaiming

The equality of men and women

The pristine message of Islam

Hidden under prejudice and discrimination

Destiny’s hand moves on

Writing its own tale

Of triumph and tragedies,

Of wars and peace,

Of bombs pulverising houses

Above the stench of death

Life begins again

The tide of sorrow turns

The sea of happiness awaits

The patient pray and persevere

Loved ones parted meet

Prisoners are freed

Fresh ones take their places

Or flee

Destiny’s moving finger writes on

Seasons change

Realities change

The rest is a test

Better a life of test

Than a worthless life of rest

The land reclaims its own

When the dead die

They live again

Becoming part of a land

Centuries old

Holding secrets

Of great civilisations

Of heroes and heroines of bygone times

Shaping history and heritage

Shaping culture

Shaping the future

Time begins

Time ends

We decide

What to do with time

Remember the poor and the wretched

Remember the desperate and the hopeful

Remember God’s sacred trust

The children of the land

Do not let your conscience die

For Power and Pride

The scent of the homeland

Wafts through the ocean air

Through continents

Its insistent call

A reverberating sound

Through sunset and dawn

Calling

Through walls

Calling

Through mountains

Seeking to reclaim

Its own

To my dear ones I say

Worry not

Shed no tears

Bear no regrets

These days will pass

After night comes day

After sorrow comes joy

The daughters of the desert know

That Destiny

Cannot Chain

The dream of a people free

Of a youth redeemed

Of a land

Where the sweet scent of justice

Fills the air

Where human rights

And economic rights

Break the prisons of poverty

Break the dungeons of disease

The repression of retrenchment

The despair of downsizing

The evil of unemployment

Prisons hold

Those that defy dictators

Those that pay the price for freedom

Knowing the chains holding liberty will break

That the desert men

Will write of desert courage

Of integrity, loyalty and unity

Baptised in suffering

That a desert maid

Will return home

Hear the wind

It carries the message:

Of dictators that came and went

Of tyrants now particles in the sands of times

How many armies came and went

How much blood was shed

Conquests proclaimed

Kingdoms fell; Tyrants too

The desert sands speak

The desert winds whisper

Truth will triumph

The desert maid will return

Travellers travel bringing news

Of political developments,

I hear of miseries

Of families without income

Of fear of hunger

I hear

And my own suffering retreats

Days pass

Life passes

I am shackled

To the dream of democracy

Unhappy are the days

Far from Malir and Multan

Far from Mardan and Makran

My countrymen are far

No one can reproach them

For they stand strong

As the October elections showed

One day I will recall these days

And forget the pain

One day I will recall these days

When political storms roared

When thundering threats filled the air

One day I will recall these days

Knowing my commitment to my land

Was purified and sustained.

I think of those exiled

from their homelands

In Los Angeles, London, Dubai

Of the days they pass

Some in despair,

Some in frustration

Some with determination

The seasons change

My face with them

Theirs too

Will my fellow villagers recognise

A face

Reflecting the seasons of fate

Night falls

The world sleeps

Darkness fills the air

I raise both my hands

And ask my children

To raise their little hands

Marvi, of Maru and Malir,

In the mists of time

She raised her hands

While the world slept

To God

Full of hope

Praying to see her homeland

Marvi,

We raise our hands

As you raised yours

To God

In hope

For the homeland

I was born in

Buried my Father

Buried my brother

Married

Had my children

Served a Nation

Helped a people

Without telephone or electricity

Computers or emails

Polio drops or iodine

Enter the modern age

But the bullets were fired

Piercing my tall and handsome Brother

His precious blood on the pavement fell

Where once we walked

The angels came

And took him away

To my Father and my Brother

As the Martyrs watched

In July we met

His warm embrace I recall

In the chandeliered Prime Minister’s Hall

His special goodbye as he left

His voice on the phone

When we talked

As family members do

The phone came

It spoke of bullets fired

Of Murtaza wounded

I took a plane

With Holy Book in Hand

To the Hospital where he lay

God, do not take

The brother that I love

It was too late

He was gone

Again I buried a brother

The killers buried the Government

Husband was imprisoned

Tiny children exiled

With ailing grandmother

Midnight raids and imprisonment

Torture and terror

Perjury and Perversion

Billions spent on false cases

On propaganda

Psy war and special operations

On a Mother

Courts calibrated

With different orders

Caught flights daily

From one to the other

Lahore to Rawalpindi

Then to Karachi The persecutors fell

In divine retribution

The military marched In

Hear the wind

It carries the sound

Of horses that galloped

Of caravans that came

Of tanks that rumbled

Of planes that flew

Before the torch of time

Was passed

As history’s pendulum swung

The desert wind calls

Marvi calls

A timeless call

A call

The desert wind carries.

Children: Hear the desert wind

Hear it whisper

Have faith

We will win.

(Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, assassinated on December 27, composed this poem to mark her 50th birthday on June 21, 2003. In an email she wrote to Khalid Hasan: “I am going to be half a century old and that makes for reflection. I have written a poem called Banazir’s Story inspired by Marvi of Malir, written by Shah Latif. Marvi was in exile from her land and pined for it as I do too. I was moved when I read it and adapted it to the present circumstances.”)

(Courtesy: Khalid Hasan)

tx_ned · #2 Tuesday, December 28, 2010

We are prepared to risk our lives, But we are not prepared to surrender our great nation to the militants. - Benazir Bhutto

Hideous serpents hissed and recoiled,
Mesmerized by your homecoming,
Obvious of your mighty presence.
Forked-tongues darting out,
Poised for the final kill.

The bang that butchered over a hundred bodies,
The road that ignited with flesh and blood,
Did little to deter your determination,
Nor shake your spirit,
To build our half-ravaged cities,
And rekindle the hearts of your poor folks.

They stalked you all along,
Like a homeless hunter
Far from the hills,
Breathing in silence,
Camouflaged in crowds.

Yes, indeed you knew them all-
Those cut-throat thugs with lolling tongues,
Militants within, militants without, Al-Qaida,Talibans,
Who knows what?

There is something rotten in the state of Pakistan
They rise in congregation,
Grubby boots, imbecile minds,
Broken promises, lidless eyes.

tx_ned · #3 Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Bhutto

I was listening to myself

The coldness penetrating my skin

As two mirrors traveled the air waves

It made no sense…there was no understanding

Heartbreak and heartache was all to be seen

Anger and mistrust flew across the skies

Light years from the markets and camps of a refugee

While the air waves slapped me in the face

My tears were only significant to me

The minister in her prime

Beauty and Sadness was what I saw in her eyes

It made no sense to me…there was no understanding

The reaper scorching the hearts of all within reach

As I sat within the comforts of home

The hallway mirrors staring at each other

Continued their shrieks

While separation of skies

Pointing translated memories and history

Only giving us portraits

Of martyrs

It made no sense to me…there was no understanding

No one listened to themselves

Even daughters cry when they find

Heaven’s door

Leaving mother’s to cry with others

And the Prime minister in her prime

A daughter and also a mother

No longer cries with the mirrors

She leaves us here listening to ourselves

Wondering why

It made no sense…there was no understanding

By Art Sun

12/27/2007

tx_ned · #4 Tuesday, December 28, 2010

I saw Benazir Bhutto last night
It was dimly-lit,with flashes of light
She was all smiles
I was sad about life's waves and tides
"Why are you sad?",she asked
"Why would they do this to you?",i replied
She asked me not to grief any further
Afterall they also killed her father
She did all to touch her people and humanity
All her works her there for us all to see
Women world over would be proud of you,Benazir
Your death is nothing but senseless and bizzare
I saw Benazir Bhutto last night
A look at her face brought hope to my saddened heart

tx_ned · #5 Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Benazir Bhutto
You are resting
In that empty garden in the sky
The bird is flying above you
And it is wonderful to know that you are there
Benazir Bhutto
I can't believe
That you are watching
Your people down from heaven
Your country grieves for you

polaris · #6 Tuesday, December 28, 2010

wow what a great piece of writing..
her thoughts, her approach, her vision..
oh my God what a loss to the nation..!!

Thanx mr tx_ned for posting such a marvelous thing!

hey did u find onething? her killers are quite visible in her poem... but alas nobody can touch them..

anyways thanx agn bro!

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