“For Peshawar” – Fatimah Asghar
From the moment our babies are born
are we meant to lower them into the ground?
To dress them in white? They send flowers
before guns, thorns plucked from stem.
Every year I manage to live on this earth
I collect more questions than answers.
In my dreams, the children are still alive
at school. In my dreams they still play.
I wish them a mundane life.
Arguments with parents. Groundings.
Chasing a budding love around the playground.
Iced mango slices in the hot summer.
Lassi dripping from lips.
Fear of being unmarried. Hatred of the family
next door. Kheer at graduation. Fingers licked
with mehndi. Blisters on the back of a heel.
Loneliness in a bookstore. Gold chapals.
Red kurtas. Walking home, sun
at their backs. Searching the street
for a missing glove. Nothing glorious.
A life. Alive. I promise.
I didn’t know I needed to worry
about them
until they were gone.
My uncle gifts me his earliest memory:
a parking lot full of corpses.
No kafkan to hide their eyes
no white to return them to the ground.
In all of our family histories, one wrong
turn & then, death. Violence
not an over there but a memory lurking
in our blood, waiting to rise
We know this from our nests–
the bad men wanting to end us. Every year
we call them something new:
British. Sikhs. Hindus. Indians. Americans. Terrorists
The dirge, our hearts, pounds vicious, as we prepare
the white linen, ready to wrap our bodies.
In her poem, “For Peshawar”, Fatimah Asghar describes the daily terrors that the citizens of Peshawar, a city in Pakistan, are forced to endure. For context, this area is ruled by the Taliban, a militant group that enforces strict laws upon its inhabitants. In order to instill fear among its people, they regularly commit acts of violence and abuse, especially against women.
One of their major forms of psychological terror is sending a white cloth as a warning before they attack schools. This white cloth called a kafkan is wrapped around the body of a dead person and is traditionally used in Muslim burials. It, therefore, not only serves as an act of foreshadowing of the deaths to come, but it is also a prevalent motif in the poem. Asghar mentions the color white multiple times when she states, “to dress them in white”, “no white to return them to the ground”, and “the white linen, ready to wrap our bodies”. The purpose of this motif is to reinforce the theme seed of death throughout the poem since that is what the color white symbolizes.
The poet also includes major shifts in her work. The first shift occurs in the beginning, between the lines “I collect more questions than answers” and “In my dreams, the children are still alive”. It marks when Asghar goes from describing the horrors of burying children to the dream she has of the children still being alive and happy. The second shift then occurs in the middle, between the lines “A life. Alive. I promise” and “I didn’t know I needed to worry”. This is the point when Asghar stops talking about her dream and cuts back to the terrors her family has experienced. This changes the tone of the poem from despairing to peaceful and then back to fearful. It also creates a break from the harshness of reality and carries the reader’s focus to an imaginary world where everything is normal and everyone is content with their lives.
This dream of hers is full of imagery. She states, “Chasing a budding love around the playground. Iced mango slices in the hot summer. Lassi dripping from lips.” Another example is “Loneliness in a bookstore. Gold chapals. Red kurtas. Walking home, sun on their backs. Searching the street for a missing glove.” These scenes paint a vivid picture in the reader’s mind and show the daily experiences of an average person. They do not include any great achievements or notable events, but rather simple, joyful moments. Asghar even states that it is “nothing glorious.” She contrasts it with the recurring idea of death apparent in other parts of the poem, showing how living even such a simple life is much better than being dead. It makes the reader realize that many of the citizens who suffer because of terrorism do not wish to live a perfect life. They just want one that is normal, a life that is alive. It also teaches the audience to never take the little things in life for granted and to enjoy their life as it is since many of them are much better off than the victims of terrorist attacks.
In addition, Asghar also uses juxtaposition various times throughout the poem, especially when she states, “From the moment our babies are born are we meant to lower them into the ground?” These lines contrast the birth of the babies to their death, which creates a sense of horror since the Taliban would not even spare babies. They even function as a hook, pulling the readers in and gaining their attention.
Asyndeton is used when Asghar states, “Every year we call them something new: British. Sikhs. Hindus. Indians. Americans. Terrorists.” She purposely does not include any conjunctions to make the list of “abusers” seem longer, even never-ending. It shows that when one leaves, another comes in. This creates a sense of hopelessness and shines a light on how terrible their situation is.
A couplet that I thought was significant is “not an over there but a memory lurking in our blood, waiting to rise”. Asghar included this to show that the events occurring in Peshawar are not something that her family views from afar like the audience does. Instead, they are something her family directly experiences and is impacted by. This creates a sense of urgency and makes her poem sound even more emotional and frightening.