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When a human being dies
the eyes grow damp.
If the one who has gone
was known to us
was dear
then along with the eyes
the heart too dissolves,
quivers,
and breaks into a low, aching cry.
If the departed
had lived among people,
had gathered lives into his embrace,
had stirred the still waters of many hearts
then not the eyes, not the heart alone,
but every particle of the body,
every drop of blood rising from the chest,
breaks open
weeping without restraint.
Alone in the dark,
one sits
feeding grief and memory
into the hidden mill of the heart,
and for a long while
finds no way out.
What does it matter
who fastens the bier
to a body emptied of breath?
What does it matter
who shoulders its weight?
Rifles cracking into the air
whom do they comfort?
Old photographs… poems…
songs… announcements
they merely attest
that he once was.
The one who has gone
has already gone
into silence.
Grief is the inward pilgrimage of man;
weeping
its outward display.
Image © Varala Anand |
