Poetry · Voices of Courage
A Chapter in
History
✦
When the sky is angry,
wind, rain, and hail are all together,
and a terrifying sound comes from the sky —
lightning!
And unconsciously, I notice the windows
and look at the sky —
this is a city where we are
the dry leaves of the trees of life.
God! How innocent, pure, and defenseless we are —
I tell myself and thousands of women like me:
O you who still breathe
in this cold city,
believe me,
one day again, in the streets of Kabul,
we will walk smiling,
Although today we have become victims of unknown games,
but —
I swear by the sky,
by the rain,
by this very painful moment:
We have become a generation
that in the future
will be a chapter in the history book
of all schools.
Believe,
endure,
wipe your tears.
We will be the chapter of a book
that thousands of students,
hundreds of questions
about us will ask their history teacher,
and they will find no answer —
no one will have an answer.
✦
Z
About the Poet
Zainab
A voice of Afghan women's resilience and resistance. Writing from exile, Zainab's poetry bears witness to a generation that history cannot silence — and asks the questions that no textbook will ever fully answer.