After Aylan Kurdi

 

 

After Aylan Kurdi

You know what red is

What is to be faceless and

What mornings can bring you.

 

Sea shore is no more a theatre

Where you go watch

the flames of the setting sky.

But a menu card,

That exhibit soft flesh

Cold and frozen out of her womb

For the stillborn us,

building castles on the sandbank.

 

After Aylan Kurdi,

Don’t speak of mother’s love,

It will drown before dreams sprout wings.

And fathers too slip

In to a world of hollow pits.

 

Don’t speak of love,

Of you and me and other kinds

On Starry nights, Where

dreams come true.

Nights are for watch towers

like owls, looking for prey and

wind, like waves in your lungs.

 

After Aylan Kurdi,

Exodus is not just about borders

But, the fluidities

of the borderless races

Floating,

In ships, boats and

on their backs.

 

After Aylan Kurdi,

Nothing is the same,

From being a toddler to a passerby.

 

Yet,

The sea looks the same.

Seagulls too.

 

They thrash and fly

from land to land, like

Royal messengers of

Gods in war.

 

*Aylan Kurdi, later reported as Alan Kurdi, was a three year old Syrian boy who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea as part of the Syrian refugee crisis. The image of his body washed ashore made global headlines and responses.