THE VALLEY OF SORROW
Come
Through stone
carved caverns
Ford rushing waters
Enter our valley
Past stone sentries
Who barricade hope
Leave behind
language and memory
They are unintelligible here
A dirge keens a communal sorrow
Insulated within mountain walls,
Frozen memories of children, and mothers
Locked in by broken bridges
We have learnt to live
Despite the deaths
We exist
And those we have watched die
Have frozen into our hearts
Their last gasps have etched our bones and scarred
our eyes
So our tears are dry wadis in a desert that
never blooms
Some sorrows are too deep to fill with tears
Bone on bones in a communal grave bury memory
too deep
For individual mourning.
They etch the living with their dying
And whispers of what could have been
Are interred with them, dumb chasubles
Within a frozen earth
The memories seep into the water drunk by
children
It enters the marriage wine, and the lovemaking
Of wide eyed brides
It
curdles in unformed marrow of unborn children
It congeals and sets, to melt into waters
Of the morrow of every morning sun.
Into this crucible of pain,
Hope drops like a blood stain
Wafting, dispersing its crimson, dancing
Wraithe like In the face of the despair,
Seen, yet not seen,slowly dissipating ,
Till at that is left is a trace, a scent, of
nostril flaring pink
Can hope transcend tears?
Can it run in rime laden cheeks of wrinkled
generations?
Is there breath enough to gasp
And life enough to cry?
Can it turn human again,
To live, to mend, and to know to live
And not die before the knowing?
Is there hope enough to live,
And dare to a dignity in death?
Crack the cavern
Bridge the stream
Let light in to darkness
And unleash the scream.
This valley may yet bloom
With flowers from that seed
One day, a mothers breast
May not curdle its milk
And children may play
Knowing they have a chance
To grow old and die
Another day.
