Loving a Refugee

To commemorate World Refugee Day, this poem was written by an Afghan woman whose husband is a refugee abroad.

Loving a Refugee

Traveler,
Love can be felt
In the far away land
Where they call you a “refugee”
And me a “woman, waiting”.

When life’s fields are hit with lighting,
We become you and I.
We are the leftovers
Of a burned generation.

Nevertheless love can be felt,
In your clothes hanging on the walls of my home,
In the delicacies we eat on Friday’s,
In your empty spot near the window,
And in my senseless melancholy.

On Eid days,
I look at your framed photo staring back,
And my trembling hands cross off days on the calendar.

My eyes break the borders of seven seas,
So I can whisper hopeful words of love
To you, from Iran, to Greece, to Australia,
And farther to America and Canada.

You lose your breath with every breaking news.
What does a world that makes your days
Shake with breaking news
And mine with waiting
Know about the pains of a refugee.


Read this poem in Persian here.