Joint Pain/ Padam Gautam
First, they burned jungles,
cornfields and hungry huts.
Burnt cots, almirahs and clothes,
and stumps of the remaining trees--
the same ash seekers
Then they made our children
carry the ashes on their mule backs.
Again they burnt the whole landscape--
wheat fields, barns,
and my beautiful wooden house.
Slowly as we watched
they burnt the whole village.
Powerless, this moment
we stand shivering in the cold
alone, bare and bleak