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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

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