I Stood Still To Watch And See

I stood still to watch and see they were gathering to fire and shell On the Bamiyan Buddhas With mortars, shells, guns, axes and hammers I mean Judas, Don Quixote, nailing and crucifying on the Cross, Quixotes fighting with the windmill, What a silly ideas was it! They trying to wipe out pre-dating them, history, art, culture and tradition In the swings of fanaticism, conservatism and theocracy, The religiously blind people. What wrong the Buddhas can do to them, why fighting with the rock-cut Buddhas, Why are they bent upon wiping them out, Cliff-hewn and rock-chiselled Buddhas? O Talibans, stop, stop, you do not know what you are doing ignorantly, Gun, gun them not, They are shantih and I fear lest you be disturbed. Your ruin, none but you calling it, joke not with the ordaining deity of peace As the Buddha the peace of mind and of soul, The meditating mind is it!