Cemetery

a poem by Mitali Srivastava

City full of tombs
It took years to build them!
Dead full of wounds
It took a life to bury them!
Everything is made up of mosaic
Stones and stones-scattered everywhere.
Old tombs and fresh graves
Are tears enveloped with prayers!

Like a cold, dry cemetery
He stands aloof and alone!
Dark and beyond repair
He doesn’t want to be consoled!!
He works hard and never tires
Myrrh and myrrh-he tastes like.
And he needs no expression on the face
Doesn’t everything seems in it’s place!

The mutilation inside can easily be felt
the rotting flesh but can’t be smelt!!
It all looks clean and dry
When you see a smile full of wry!!
But you see hard and look again
Blood and blood-behind the stony veil!
And while picking the pieces of broken glass
reflects bleeding ghosts as memories flash.

To understand immortality at it’s best
Rip all the graves that are at rest!
The sight can repel all the eyes
Wounds heal as the time flies!
But what if it’s sealed before healing
Maggots and maggots-alive and wailing.
So don’t dig and leave alone every grave
Is that what you call being brave?

The buried still writhe in pain
They are not dead but silently wail!
Caked mud wraps them with a pace
Feels like iron when out of furnace!!
It’s only mud though very hard
Rain and rain-softening would be a start.
Today he moans, tomorrow you will follow
A cemetery is meant to be full of sorrows!