This show begins with a brief discussion of a listener's response to Episode 42, Manifesto on Ars Poetica, and a special announcement. Today's poem discussion begins at 11:25.
Originally broadcast: September 28, 2018
If they were to come for us
By: Fatimah Asghar
these are my people and I find
them in the street and in the shadows
through any wild, any wild
my people my people
a dance of strangers in my blood
the old woman's sari dissolves in the wind
Bindi a new moon on her forehead
I claim her as my kin and I sew her
the star of her on my breast
the toddler hanging from the stroller
hair a fountain of dandelion seeds
at the bakery I ask for them too
sikh uncle at the airport
who apologizes for the beating
Down with the Muslim man who gives up
his car crashes at a red light
kneeling at the call of the azan
& the Muslim man who sips
good whiskey at the start of the Maghrib
the only Khala in the park
combine your kurta with crocs
my people, my people, I can't be lost
when I see you, my compass
is brown, gold and blood
my compass, a muslim teenager
snapback and high top sneakers
the metro platform
mashallah I claim them all
my country is made
like my people
if they come for you, they
come and look for me also in the dead
of winter a flock of
aunts go out on the sand
their dupattas face the ocean
a colony of uncles grind their hands
and a thousand jasmines ring the air
my people, I follow you like constellations
we hear the glass breaking in the street
And the nights open their darkness
our names the wood of this country
for fire my people my people
the long years we have survived
years to come, I see you on the map
my sky the light of your long lantern
forward and I am I am
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