**tribal Ways (Tribal Elder) Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

Of black heavy stature and long jaw
His eye brows were mixed straight
Head between the shoulders like a lion
Aiming at some prey with stained teeth
His ear lobes touched his neck side ways
When he would look through thick corners
Of eyes black and the nostrils as if cut
To suck in more air in times of anger
He played two flutes at a time
Pushed fat of lamb into the wounds of father
Never to die on bed but with bullet
He wore shoes made from bull’s skin
He always used his vintage gun from England
On the bony structure laid a hairy chest
The pride of walk was as if he would
Dig a well with every step on earth
The eloquence of speech would put
Uneasy gestures as would he lead
His men into dangers of some conquest
Some negotiations and mastery of diplomacy
Very old wisdom of survival and instincts
Not unlike animal when he would sit
On a cushion made of fur from the sheep
Sheep also of the tribe for the shepherd
He was though but in humility water
His trees of apple and almonds for season
When almonds with white flowers
Before the leaves on dry stems
He would be seen some where under the wall
Thick of mud to ponder not the philosophy
Nor the religion but the hard politics
Harbinger of the direct democracy
The tribe’s men had the privilege
To know and be aware what he does
What he does not of that too in his code
Unwritten law of the land went in the chest
From generations to generations codified
In strictness imposed the code of morality
Serving the tradition is the cause superior
No other sovereign they accept but now
In shambles the fabric when freedoms new
Slaveries new and some masters new
Learning from the stone now to the book
Reading a shoulder blade now forgotten
Who explains the book and who goes literate
A long way in the ages of evolution
From the tribal ways but a transformation
To the urbanity of living unthinkable
Still in their own freedoms and ways ancient
For the love of the language and traditions old
Into the great game as the tribe naïve
The most pristine as it enters the wrath
From the whole world for being way ward
20/4/2009