The Graveyard of Catastrophe

'Pass me the shovel, I’ve got work to do.'

Charan Singh

'Pass me the shovel, I’ve got work to do.'

Pass me the shovel,
I’ve got work to do,
Don’t you see the corpses lying in front of you.

I have to build a grave that’s deep and wide,
So they may find space which was ruthlessly denied.
I’ve to bury the bodies of Mudassar and Ankit,
And along with it, this country's secular ambit.

I have to bury a part of that widow,
A part of her heart that alas, we cannot sew.
I’ve to bury the daughter’s treasured memories,
Memories once nascent, memories inflicting her greatest tragedies.

I have to bury the ashes of those shops,
And with it the years of perspiration drops.
I’ve to bury the skeletons of ghost towns,
Towns burnt alive before it could let out a single sound.

I have to bury the valour of the guardians,
Guardians reticent witnessing the fiend.
I’ve to bury the soul of humanity,
The soul which resided in the armour of empathy.

I have to bury the conscience of the stoically silent,
Their silence so deafening, their words so spent.

I have to bury my self,
My self is that part of me,
That is sitting helplessly,
This self must be buried in this graveyard of catastrophe.

Featured image credit: Unsplash

This article went live on March twenty-fifth, two thousand twenty, at zero minutes past twelve at night.

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