We trek the path
littered with corpses of our past and present. We tread gingerly
around the bleeding flesh, we hold our breath for the putrefying
odour overpowers us.
We yearn for the
poetry of our childhood, which turned to ashes in our mouth in our
youth. We look to the distant stars of the dark night and hope that
our tears would dry up before we are bled of all our love.
The tune that our
bodies once swung to in bliss has faded from Music. Our limbs feel
the searing heat and fall with tiring regularity on the sodden soil.
The soil which died when the blossoms faded.
With knowing eyes we
survey our fellow travellers and wonder if there is any love at all
in the world we once thought we knew. We wonder at the futility of
the next step, but the feet walk on.
We look at the
corpses hanging with the mangoes and ask if we are more alive than
them. Young women they once were, now they have putrefied in the
summer heat, and mingle with the odour of the mangoes.
Mother, don't stop
singing your lullaby, not today, for your daughters cannot smile
without danger. Don't stop, the tears are not yet full of steaming
anger.
The fog is too thick
to see past the corpses littering our path. Yet, there is hope and a
dream, a snatch of a song carried back to us from the people who will
learn to dance without a bloodthirst in an orchard with
fruits of our love hanging ripe upon the trees.
