It’s okay to maim my name for I am an inconsequential thing
You can place me on the shelves of Primark and Aldi
Mine is a ‘budget identity’, made on the cheap – no frills!
But a long time ago, in the era of benign Kings and Queens
My people’s fortunes and graces were celebrated afar
On distant plains, if you paid attention, you’d hear their words
But now they are no more, Buddhist remains of Gandhara’s good days
The old language has lost her script, its sounds fading into the winds
As we wake up every morning hoping to catch the gentle echoes
What of Gandhara and that ancestral place we’ve forgotten?
Of wealthy merchants and beautiful people, pure and virtuous
Giving their dues, filial acts sketched on the minds of noble folk
Their statues are serenaded in British Museums and glossy books
A blessing of sorts I guess, plucked from their decaying promenades
Thousands of miles away from the land of the Crescent and ‘fat men’
I can walk into any British library and see their faces, as if they never left
I feel at peace, restored, Gandhara, is a name worth saying
And so I thank my forbears lingering fondness for Britain’s Merchant Ships
In the dingy engine rooms, they shovelled coal and made passage here
More than a century ago, they made the leap for Britain’s cold winters
I don’t know their names, the places they stayed, or their memories
But at least I have something of them in Britain’s stately buildings
Standing proudly tall, sublime, forebears worth remembering
Here in the land of the Cross, I can stare into the past and be redeemed
It’s as if I never left the place we’ve been made to forget
And I find in the peace of a cavernous space, the good folk of Gandhara
Lovingly placed, honoured, speaking to me, telling me, “you’ve come home”