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Contests : War Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2009 : Ted Stein
REPORT FROM HERAT
"You've never seen a woman's face?
You wrote the rules, so gorge on them, not me!"
I want to shout this at the men in Herat,
who crowd my frame to stare
at my yellow hair, powder cheeks, red lips
as I phone my story in
or try to interview women gliding through rubble
in cornflower shrouds. But I bite my tongue.
I need their help to thread my way in this city
of males who open and close its spaces—
clubs, offices, sewer-stench back-alleys
for plotting, sweet-tea hang-outs, rooms
at home. Again and again I sense the nacreous
sheen of female presence folded away
like linen on a closet shelf.
I need to get in and touch.
Here on the street my heart goes out to a voice
fluttering against the mesh that prisons its face.
I feel glad and afraid as I try to follow the lips
that press in a ghastly mesh-paled way
their urgent message.
I try to start a conversation, unsure
if my questions will open thought
or mere pain, or just sound laughably dumb.
But the mouth falls silent and vanishes.
I feel infinitely far away.
The bolder ones wear netting so tight
you faintly see them looking at you, peering
like deer in a wood. Reporter's luck—
one of them asks me to her house,
along with friends.
In the dim interior the burkas are hung on hooks,
and the talk becomes an embrace,
naked and full, disturbingly intimate,
the words seeming drawn from the oven of body
to warm the whole room.
One woman lifts her shirt
to show how she has no milk for her youngest child.
In every unveiled face I see
a hunger to soar beyond the roof
that presses down so heavily,
silent and rigid as a man who won't speak.
They tell their regret at marrying so young,
having so many children,
so little food for the table,
so little say in the wearying house
where a second wife is dragged in
through the broken door.
I stare all the while at their faces to fix them fast
and see them again behind the mesh in the street.
When I get up to leave the damaged house,
the woman who lifted her shirt holds me back,
the soft of her hand a thrill on my arm
(a crazy urge to offer my own breasts
lifts through my mind).
She wants to recite a poem she made
in the danger of stolen moments
(women are barred from writing).
Sitting erect, she chants the verse
in words I can't grasp
(my translator won't interrupt);
but I hear their strength, I feel the sounds
pressing upon the areola of desire.
As she intones, the folds of skin
around her mouth fill with a milky light,
and fill, until her worn face shines.
[Some details have been taken from an article by correspondent Amy Waldman reviewing impressions of her time in Afghanistan ("Questioning Prisoners in Jails of Cloth," New York Times, 12/29/01).]
This poem was a finalist in the 2009 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About Ted Stein
Born in NYC 5/6/1930, grew up in suburbs (New Rochelle, Westchester). 2 B.A.s (Yale 1951, Cambridge 1958), M.D. (Case Western Reserve 1969), Ph.D. in English (Yale 1984), L.M.P.(Licensed Massage Practitioner 1990); taught in France (1952-53); U.S. Army, stationed in Japan (1954-56; was then fluent in Japanese & French, now speaks only French); asst. editor, Yale University Press (first reader for Yale Series of Younger Poets, 1958-60); co-ran Charles Theater (experimental films), 12th St. & Avenue B, NYC (1960-62); pre-med studies at Columbia School of General Studies (1962-65); medical school & internship (1965-70); 7-12 grade French teacher (1970-72) at Cincinnati Country Day School; grad. school in English (1972-78); college English teacher (Smith 1978-79; Whitman College, ending as Associate Professor Emeritus 1979-97). Book: Wordsworth's Art of Allusion. Retired, now a committed poet; also counselor for seniors, Boulder, CO, until I moved to New Jersey for health (cancer) & family reasons (2 sons in NY area). Writing for me is encountering, a way of entering deeper into the world and the human heart through intense free reflection.
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