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Many Good&Wonderful Things


What more am I to say? Our kind-hearted Sirkar has done everything possible for us to protect us from the cold. We are each provided with two pairs of strong, expensive boots. We have whale oil to rub in our feet, and for food we are provided with live Spanish sheep. In short, the Sirkar has accumulated many good and wonderful things for our use.
KALA KHAN to ILTAF HUSSAIN, 27 December, 1917


History too has a hard time remembering
the black waters they crossed, the small
mountain villages emptied of men.
Death was different then. History is always
reinventing itself. Say what you will,
but clouds have remained more or less
the same, and leaving home is still leaving
home, whether it’s on a jet plane or climbing
the steep path behind the house with a roll
of bedding on your back. But to die in a faraway
place whose name you can’t pronounce,
for a king who isn’t really yours, is a sadness
history still hasn’t figured out. History
has been pushing for republics since Lucius
Junius Brutus, but men are hardy, is the point,
or bull-headed. And you’d think the glories
of lice making mansions in their shirts
was a paradise they could do without,
that trench-living would make them walk
across the front with arms held high, saying,
Take me quick, I wish only to enter the realms
of God. History tries not to be sentimental,
although letters give things away. One fool
longed for a flute—the world is burning,
but he wants to play. Others were gluttons,
mercenaries, spies. The wise asked for opium
but write “sweets” or “dainties,” they said,
otherwise the package might not reach.
History needs to forget the dead who cover
the earth like heaps of stones, who write:
Mother—is my parrot still alive?
Mother—do not go wandering madly.

Sometimes it feels as though the rain
has been falling all your life and the girl
you married will tire of tending the cattle.
Do not worry. This is war, where the women,
like metaphors, are always steadfast and beautiful.
In history’s version she sits under the peepal tree
with your Victoria Cross pinned to her sari.
She has been waiting since 1918 and she is waiting
still. So let us speak of love the way we always have,
by asking, have you eaten, darling? And what price
did you get for the goats? And of course,
I miss you, but the earth is hard and the sky,
distant, and if I had wings I’d fly to you.
In Marseille they said we looked like kings.
History cannot really say what happens to men
at war. So listen: At night I feed on stars.
Do not ask about the cold. They have given
me whale oil for my feet and someone
told me if I carried a piece of raw onion
into battle, the bullets would not find me.