Death-struck
The car was humming menacingly…..
Bleak streetlights rushed past us in fear
We were pitching deep into the darkness
Silence fell in sheets all around us
Dampening our feet in cold sorrow
Death had reached our destination
Before us
The news dug an empty ditch in our hearts
The loss of a healthy young son
Suddenly he was lifeless matter
Our daughter a waxen widow
The little children of light and hope
Are now wandering soap bubbles
Death who knocks on all doors
Was a stranger to me
When he entered my daughter’s house
I was knowing him for the first time.
Had he come for me straight
I’d have followed a stranger
Now I can see him standing before my daughter
Like a great void, leading nowhere
Her heart, heavy with dripping sorrow
Hung out in the scorching sun
To drip and dry, drip and dry, and dry and dry,
Till it dried up and wrinkled ,
Like a dark shrunk smoked raisin
To be kept in the cellar, for long long years.
-- Zaida Kadambot
