Pangi - the valley of sorrow

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.