In the darkness of a shamed night

In the darkness of a shamed night,

When bastard diseases patrolled Kashmir

Poetry was stolen from the dead

Verses erased from gravestones

Dates reversed, Irises trampled

Histories robbed

The old desolate widow houses of Jhelum -

Whose rooms were plotted by the

doomed architects of fate, were broken into

Their Gothic windows broken,

Their Mughal arches crooked,

Their doors empty frames bordered

only the most intricate woodwork from

Ishfan

The Pacicdhars* who used to

Live in attics, were all been exiled by

The thunderous impotence of mad men

Who set fire to autumn skies till

everyone was a

Refugee from Forgotten memories of

An ancient nation, their identities crushed under

one-ton military trucks

---

* Pacicdhars: Mythical guardians, which were believed to live in the attics of Kashmiri houses, and used to descend in the middle of night wearing wooden clogs, protecting the homes from spiritual ills.

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In Barely Discernible Darkness

I will trace the Jhelum Across Your back with my fingers In barely discernible darkness It will form a paisley Drawn from the memory of An imagined Kashmir No language spoken by Man or Gods shall be Uttered that night Words will be melded, Sentences molded to form A new language of love The ink, a fine powdered Amethyst, shall dry as We write its grammar The quill tips, fashioned From old bones, shall Burn in its blaze The room will be Full of scorch marks In barely discernible darkness -- Tz

Surviving Kashmir

In Kashmir Tragedy doesn't strike you, It seeps inside you, like a malignant disease Slowly making its way to your brain, Disintegrating your mental faculties, one by one. Taking you apart one minute at a time, making happiness A sepia picture that grandfather Put up on the wall of the ancestral house, That is now just a road, with every passing car Raising dust over your family tree, the room where You once crawled, teeming with unruly pedestrians, Grounding your memories to mere dust, walking by an invisible house with blue windows and tin sheeted gate. In Kashmir, tragedy doesn't seek you, it survives you.

Some Other Time

We will be counting days again, till we say hello again— only for us to say goodbye again. We always knew we’d have to say our goodbyes one day. Then why does it hurt so? Even so, when we know it won’t be long before even goodbyes are a luxury. We cling to hopes— that this isn’t the only life we will live. That one day, we will meet again, in some other life, in some other time, where we won’t have to say G oodbye.

Tasenda

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