The reflected light of freedom

The vision haunting me is of a flower that survives
In beauty and in silence, amid the dust and tears.
Of an artist in the moonlight painting colours he can't see
Who is confused by the reflected light of freedom.

A woman quietly kneels in the shadow of a room
Tears of helpless anger, for a life no longer shared
And if he'd thought to ask her, would have answered without fear
She doesn't care for the reflected light of freedom.

A veil of tears will never hide the pain
The moving finger writes, and then it moves again
And all your tears will never wash away
The words that are reflections of you.

Of a poet in the dawn-light, writing words he cannot speak
Telling tales of peaceful dreams, that he will never know.
Of a still defiant anger in the green eyes of a girl
Who longs to live in the reflected light of freedom.

I started thinking about this when I saw the portrait photograph of Sharbat Gula, the 17-year-old Afghan girl, on the cover of the June 1985 issue of National Geographic. Her green eyes stare out of the page with such intensity that it makes you jump. It makes you realise that oppressed people are not pathetic or defeated: they are angry and defiant!

After the Russians left Afghanistan in 1987 a letter home from Russian soldier was published. He describes clearing a village and going into a house where, in a dark corner, he saw a movement, but realised in time that it was a woman kneeling, in tears, looking at the body of her husband by the door.

I gave my son a book by Chinese poet Ai Weiwei, and realised that, although Weiwei travels the world apparently freely, he has to be careful in what he says or he will no longer be allowed such freedom.

And I realised that people living under oppressive regimes long for freedom, but they don't know quite what freedom is: they only see it reflected in our lives - we who are free, and never think about freedom.
And perhaps that's what freedom is.