A white-haired woman wearing a black scarf
Rummages through the finger-licked pages
Of her dateless past,
Hobbling across a minefield
Of memories, knowing well that
One wrong step could be her last – –
Could set off
A vision of spouting blood and instant death:
She prays for peace – –
Clinging to snapshots of former times
When tiled and thatched houses were still called homes,
The white-haired man in mundu relives an age
When words were not arrested in mid-speech
Or thoughts shot through their foreheads:
He sees the same candles being lit again
And people marching along the same narrow-minded streets
Shouting slogans before their throats run dry
Until the next open murder wakes them up from sleep.
The general reader will find this to be an engaging and evocative work wrought with the author’s inimitable poetic acumen.
Thank you very much, Louis.
Wow! quite engrossing poem.
Thank you very much, Rahul.