This Dust Storm by Ayesha Kajee

This Dust Storm
(for the women who write and those who fight, despite, despite)

You huffed and you puffed
and you blew our home astray
Till the veil fell, I bore the blind one’s buff
unseen, joy and loss alike swept away
better together our slogan foresworn
memories of play, pieces of peace, all gone
– whirled worlds away
lost to the shifting sands of dust-motes
raised by you breathing ire igniting fire
This dust storm razed the house of straw votes
I held, while monopolies of power align with the liar
I vanish, am vanquished, ground zero’s a pyre
of flimsy foundations
– built upon a barrage
of falsehood, faithless fabrications
– merely a mirage
Half-truths far from the forgotten oasis
where fabled fair-play purports to reign
must be pleasantly hot somewhere there, bliss
– not here, singed by the acrid rain
of acid mistrust, distrust laid bare
a soul-suttee where there’s
no wadi to seed hope
in the desert of desolation
Yet frail hints of jasmine tint the air
We is relinquished, a heart-coup
– alone, adieu
Seeking the Beloved within
I begin to build anew

Ayesha Kajee is a storyteller, poet and rights activist whose research on governance and democracy in many parts of sub-saharan Africa has been published in various media. Her research interests include post-conflict transformation, socio-economic renewal and gender and environmental rights. She writes because she can’t not.