Sometimes I wonder what’s the point of it all. We work, we eat, we live, we pray, we fight and we die.
We just die. We stop breathing and we cease to exist.
All that effort, every single drop of blood shed, whisked away in an instant. To be snuffed out like a candle, when everything seems to be going your way.
What is the point of it all?
There are days when nothing seems worthwhile and other days when everything makes you feel like you’re on top of the world. That’s life, though, isn’t it?
Tick-tock, tick-tock;
Back and forth the pendulum rocks
Pounding each second into the ground
Now it’s here, now it’s gone.
Ominously, the cloud watches
as the gathering storm approaches
to merge with the dancing wisps of cottony-white
and turn the brightest day into darkest night.
Tick-tock, tick-tock;
The sound continues,cold and sedate,
matching the clang of the metal spade
as it comes in contact with the hardest rock.
Aisha pauses to wipe the sweat
that falls in droplets from her brow;
The littered battleground is a mute spectator
to the harshness of her sorrow.
One by one, she digs the graves
Three in number into their designated places;
Her tears have dried up much like the well of hope
As she rolls the bodies into the shallow spaces.
Once done, she dusts her hands and wipes the grime
from her face with the edge of her shawl;
She looks up at the sneering clouds with a passive stare
Saying, ‘I think it’s time to end it all.’
©Shailaja V
The tears haven’t stopped yet
They flow afresh with every image, every headline and tweet I see
‘Why’ seems like a futile question
To ask of the ruthless Taliban who showed no mercy.
It isn’t enough to cry and grieve and mourn
For how can we even begin to fathom
That pain, that agony and terrifying silence
Which must be nestled in even one mother’s womb?
My heart stopped beating yesterday
Stunned into unspeakable muteness
By the sheer scale of the attack
Which rendered mute the lives of a hundred innocents.
Our world shakes on a rocky foundation
Where crimes are committed in the name of Religion;
Today, I stand in solidarity with every bereaved soul
Be they from Peshawar, Gaza or Sandy Hook Elementary School.
