All Washed Out
Linda Bayley-Brown’s Boundless and Borderless Love for Sindh and Sindhis

British poet Linda, inspired by Sindh’s beauty, wrote a poem when the 2010 floods ravaged the land of ancient Indus Civilization.
“I gifted this poem to the people of Sindh who were the victims of floods” – Linda Bayley-Brown
All Washed Out
River no longer laps at my feet
It is now drowning out the street
No longer running crystal clear
Soil of ancients washed up here
***
Wet gritty fossil dust leaching
Far wide and quickly reaching
Every field barn loft and home
Making a watery sodden tomb
***
Running hard fast and scared
Stricken people unprepared
For this dank flowing sorrow
Some won’t live for tomorrow
***
Fathers, husbands and sons
Toiling to close all river runs
Feeling weary as they stride
To stem full dirty flowing tide
***
Farmers cry for drowning fields
Wave goodbye to feeding yields
Weeping mothers cradle babes
In their wet and darkened caves
Oh what has Mother Nature done!
Are we to struggle again alone?
Greater world you have a choice
To help us back to singing voice
***
Do not let your hearts forget
For it’s nowhere near over yet
Raging waters may now subside
But the aftermath’s a painful ride
***
As you go about your busy day
Please don’t forget us we pray
We didn’t deserve this nightmare
So show us please that you care
_______________
Linda Bayley-Brown, British poet, based in UK, had seen Sindh through the Facebook friendship with a poet Zaib Sindhi who used to share with her history and culture of Sindh. This poem which was translated by Sindhi writer and poet Hidayat Baloch and published in daily Kawish, a Sindhi newspaper. Linda Bayley-Brown shared her poem on Sindh when she was interviewed by rightesnowpak.com in 2011. The poem has been taken from her interview and republished by Sindh Courier, as Sindh has again been ravaged by torrential rains and flash floods.
Courtesy: Rights Now Pak (Published on February 18, 2011)