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