Let us go there, you and I, hoping
chocolates fall from the sky.
Let us go into a hilly terrain, where
flows the ancient Amu Darya,
where Marco Polo watched sheep
graze on the grass of Pamirs. Do
they still browse or is it tamam shud
with a rat-a-tat-tat?
Has the river turned red?
Incarnadined, gaze ghosts
unwounded by the smell of scorching
bombs from human rights’ drones
or terror-worn nights and days.
Could they have dropped chocolates?
Could they drop chocolates instead
for the children who will stop breathing
as adult-wars indiscriminately annihilate?
The basic rights — to survive, to eat, to grow —
seared by explosions or starved to lie under dust.
The Oxus weeps as crimson flows the Amu Darya.
Who will give back to the unliving their unspent years?
Oxus is the Latin name of Amu Darya — a river that starts in the Pamirs and flows through central Asia.
Mitali Chakravarty writes for peace, love and harmony. In that spirit, she has founded the Borderless Journal.
