A raddled field that runs into distance,
Is full of mass graves.
Its feral bumps are the gravestones,
Bound by blazing war-games.

‘The Living Dead’ ―
Come here to bury their dearest ones,
With a flair of doing the best;
Every new-arrival is flung
Into the stillness of thrifty, shallow pits…
Someone’s account of a child, a bride, a secret friend,
Sadly passes away.

‘The Living Dead’ ―
Their manner of anguish and grief,
Is to hurry back home,
And hurdle under some shambled heap,
The only shield to show up, again.

‘The Living Dead’ ―
By the glow of the burning villages
Will find their dwellings.
Thereafter, those who survive,
Might remember the Gone,
Like forgotten words of a prayer.

Jan 2009

Geeta Chhabra