Two Powerful Poems by Adele Ogier Jones

 

Kites

I

 

Kites high above

Beyond fluttering

Beyond recovery

Questioning return.

 

Are they released

to escape

into tomorrow

without turning back?

 

Are kites

as messages in bottles

high enough

to fly

above dream lands

on magic carpets.

 

So many holy day

festival kites

fireworks

children calling

from old wooden swings

ice-cream vendors

and a never-ending traffic

with nowhere to go.

 Ii

 

Kites and birds together

Skies speckled coloured

Long tails black and white

Scarves of ribbons red and green

Blazing with light

In grey skies clouded with dust.

 

Red and purple

Skies brushed with blue

Lapis and sapphire the backdrop

Emeralds, aquamarine, tourmaline

Lightning rays, shafts of silver light

Against a desert sand backdrop.

 

Waving and curling in skies

Filled with forms gently waving

Calm, peacefully finding their paths

Light and dark twisting in shadows

Waves in the ocean of blues

glass, lapis, and blue of the lakes.

 

Blue as Bandar Amir’s waters - deep, calm

As the Herat creations – glistening, cool

As the eyes of Nuristan – lost in history

As tiles on Mazar-e-Sharif masjid

As the skies of early spring – after rain

Blue in reverence.

 

 

 

Merry-go-round

 

At Eid and festival times

old wooden merry-go-rounds

come into streets,

resurrected from the past

hidden carefully for enjoyment again

for delight must come, happiness

possible, even in snatches.

 

Children laughing, gripping rough wood

Panels unpainted, rotating, swinging

as if these are days when fun is allowed

wars are forgotten in the thrill of rising,

in the fear of descending to the ground

only to rise once more,

the thrill all over again.

 

Who made this carousel in dust

in the only space cleared

in a cramped neighbourhood?

Who remembers the thrill,

that excitement

of childhood enough to make possible

this brief delight?

 

Forever children grown old by war’s destruction

remember these merry-go-round days,

waiting quietly with parents

with few expectations

glad even for these minutes

when children smile with eyes lit up

as the merriment goes round

and round, and then

-      stops.

 

Adapted from a poem in ‘Afghanistan waiting for the bus’ (Ginninderra Press 2007)

A member of The Poetry Society, Adèle writes creatively as Ogiér Jones and calls Freiburg i. Br. and Melbourne home. She has four collections of poems, the latest Counting the Chiperoni was published by Ginninderra Press (2020) along with her latest chapbook Bonhommes (Ginninderra Press, 2020), written for artwork of artist Aziz Kibari. She appears in numerous anthologies and has been shortlisted and awarded in poetry competitions. The poems presented here were written when she lived in Afghanistan.