The Yellow River
A cobbled street
echoes my footfall.
Time dented stone
faces, dust dyed,
worn by rain
and ice,
frosts at midnight.
In dark, they listen
with lowered lids
cart loads reach the yellow
river. A mad man's song
for tomorrow's dead
seeps through feathery
quilts, into dreams
about the dead. Of graves
and caves that open
doors to the roaming beast.
Sometimes he yields his prey
to others better than him
at carnage.
In July, the river overflows
its banks leaving behind mud
mounds, washed white
to paint eyes, lips, hands.
Slipping, staggering feet
of those who died last week,
the week of terror before,
and a week before that.
Leaf shadows, silver
shimmer fish,
a small cherry blossom wound.
Mute contusions, grave blue
and purple.
Brave head that fell
in ambush.
[© Lalita Pandit, April 9, 1998].
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