Women Washing Clothes in the Kabul River
photo in the NY Times
Nov 15,2001

•

Yesterday,
shuttered in houses,
the windows painted black—
today, they curve around
the banks of this river
like women gossiping
in a painting by Renoir.
Colorful clothes,
purple, bright green and orange,
reflected in the water,
overflowing baskets,
brilliant burqas
worn carelessly or tossed aside,
feet bare, hair still covered,
oldfashioned pantelets
showing beneath skirts
as they bend to their task.
They are molting,
shedding the decades,
letting silvery coils
of water flow around them,
tiny fish sport about their toes.
In the foreground,
a girl child ,
skirts upraised,
is ankle deep in the stream,
an expression on her face
of quizzical delight.

Now,
in case new tyrants come,
before they are shut up again,
they rush to taste once more
old lives of ordinary happiness.