Sweet God!
I mourn for Your blue skies.
They are forlorn and unchanging in mood.
Can You hear the sound of bombings?
Their sound is clearer,
Than the appearance of Your blue skies.

 

Your blue skies are suspiciously silent,
As they gaze at the billowing smoke
Rising through the blazing columns.
Far, far beyond the misty fog,
In terror, and prayer –
So many have already perished.

 

Sweet God!
In this bewildered darkness,
All imagined joy has departed
From Your blue skies.
In many, many parts of Your earth,
The song of Spring has vanished.

 

Death’s nocturnal desire is more furious
Than the gait of the fighters.
Towards the opening spaces,
Or, among the hidden hills,
Death digs mass graves
For nameless corpses.

 

Sweet God!
It is hard to see someone dead.
I mourn for Your blue skies.
Guard them in such a way that
They never hear the sound of bombings.
They never see conflict.

 

 

Dubai
 2015

                          

Geeta Chhabra

 

From the book: Smash My Glass by Geeta Chhabra.