This Is Not A Poem

This is not a poem of love or war
Or other important things in life
It is not a poem talking about
The children lost in the streets of Gaza
Looking for the ghosts of their parents
This is not about the women in Burma
Welcoming widowhood with open arms
As it creeps slowly into their lives
This is not about Zamfara, or Kebbi or Birnin Gwari
And the stench of death
Wafting through their once-serene skies
This is not even about that groom
That lost his bride on their first night
In a city whose name has been buried
Beneath the rubble after the blast
That wiped it off the earth.

This is not a poem about life
Or how fleeting it is
This is not about how we live
Basking in the glory of our ignorance
Or how we grope in broad daylight
On the streets of this terrain.
This is not even about death,
Or the weight with which it lands
And the speed with which it lifts its victims
It is not even about the groove it leaves
In the hearts of their loved ones.

This is not a poem about love
Or about lovers that roam the streets at night
Singing poems of longing for their beloveds.
Or about the Maiden that lives by the ocean
Asking the waves news of her rabbi
This is not even about the insane man
Who sees his lover in the eyes of
Every woman that passed by him.

This is not a poem about me,
Or about you,
Or the mysteries surrounding our lives.
I do not know what I write,
This is not even a poem.

———
© Naseeba Babale
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay