Outside the Military Hospital

It’s the end of a long, white, oven-hot April day
The soldiers take off their boots to tread home
In crumpled, sweaty uniforms, their feet suddenly
Vulnerable in soft rubber sandals bought at the army exchange.
The young women cadets march by in perfectly formed columns,
Laughing and calling to one another. But no one will scold them,
Looking hopeful as they do in their clean uniforms
And military caps. Nurses walk by in a crocodile, white and crisp,
Stars on their shoulders. Their steps are full of purpose
Between the railway lines that mark the boundary of the military zone.
On one end, and the dusty roads on the other.
Cars, taxis, rickshaws and buses bring more and more people here,
To this navy oasis. These are Pakistan’s poor
Women in black burqas, holding children by the hand
Men in wheelchairs, the aged trembling between meaningful steps.
A girl with a patch over her eye, a boy with an angry rash on his face.
Where is a man and where is a woman in this ongoing tide?
Here, only the line between the powerful and the powerless,
The healthy and the sick, is what counts.
Those that seek help and those who come to give it
This is all that matters. The sun is equally unkind to them all
And God is equally forgiving. And that’s the way it’s always been
Despite fifty years and as many leaders in between.