Columnists
Amritsar 1984
A Poem by MICHELE GIBSON
The following is the 58th in sikhchic.com's series, "1984 & I" - in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of India's crimes of 1984.
AMRITSAR
Healing is not measured in blood
Blood is murky and opaque,
It darkens history
Perverts humanity
Ego also moves in veins
Can be amplified by blood, but
Can be usurped by love,
If blood is spilled the body fails
The ego dies,
But love, always prevails
He held her hand
Amidst the chaos and the ruin
He held her hand, though blood had spilled enough to ease her life away
He held her gentle hand, as he had the day before, as he had an hour ago
Even as the soldiers and their victims fell in gruesome heaps around him,
He held her hand
He caressed each finger tip
He massaged her knuckles, creased and swollen from her chores
Fast and nimble in her work,
Still now
He sat in her warm blood, now lost from its routine
Once precise, now flowing freely everywhere
Like a prayer, emanating
He kissed her palm, he eased her close and waited for the guns to cease
Suddenly a soldier recoiled from his intent and fell
His blood spilling out of line, oozing from routine,
Colliding with his beloved's, mingling,
He sat amidst their blood
The aggressor and the innocent
Weakened by his loss, waiting
He paused for the soldier's breath to leave
Grieved the chaos ordered loose that day
Reached out for his misguided hand,
And prayed, as conduit,
She would forgive him
November 2, 2009