Postcard from Kashmir

"Can you explain to me what's going on in Kashmir between India and China?"

I told him what I know.

I could have told him more.

Like the stories from more than three decades ago, of a Kashmiri Muslim sister and brother who, by coming to graduate school, were fleeing their native land.

Compared to the present, those were Kashmir's good days!

I am confident that those siblings have read Agha Shahid Ali's "Postcard from Kashmir." I can easily imagine that they relate to every word in it.

Postcard from Kashmir
By Agha Shahid Ali

Kashmir shrinks into my mailbox,
my home a neat four by six inches.

I always loved neatness. Now I hold
the half-inch Himalayas in my hand.

This is home. And this the closest
I'll ever be to home. When I return,
the colors won't be so brilliant,
the Jhelum's waters so clean,
so ultramarine. My love
so overexposed.

And my memory will be a little
out of focus, it in
a giant negative, black
and white, still undeveloped.