30/30: Golden Shovel poem #19

source: With Much to Lose, Afghan Women Fear Stifling Return to Past

 

The hills are bare, with

Few signs of human life against much

Emptiness. Wooden stakes form an enclosure to

Hold some sheep, some goats. To lose

An animal is to lose income for the Afghan

Women living here. The women

Tend sheep, goats, kitchen, without expressing fear

Of the men who come now and then, stifling

The women’s wish for their daughters’ return

From exile, from freedom. What could daughters do to

Push back this hurtle backward to the past?

 

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Here is how I am using Terrance Hayes’s Golden Shovel poem format, as proposed by the Sunday New York Times "At Home" section, for 30 Poems in 30 Days during National Poetry Month.

 

Take a newspaper headline that attracts you.

Use each word in the line as the end word for each line in your poem.

Keep the end words in order.

Describe the story that the headline is for.

The poem does not have to be about the same subject as the headline that creates the end words.