February, the month
of love, is now coloured
by incarnadined cries
from battlegrounds.
Irrawaddy has turned red.
Dneiper weeps ashes and blood.
Yet, red roses will distribute love
bought in supermarket splendour.
Bombings in Beirut, Peshawar.
Ring the bells for love till bombs
are incapacitated to hate.
This February, ring the bells.
Lay red roses on graves
where sunflowers bloomed.
Lay red roses where shootings
killed innocents. Weep. Weep.
Weep for unspent lives that
fell to violent massacred deaths.
The colour red, colour of love,
colour of blood, lies scattered.
Is that a red petal or a white
spattered by the blood of a young
life that lies quietly on the other
side? The tiny feet will not
patter anymore. Red is the
colour of roses. Red is the
colour of love. Lay roses for
those forced to depart untimely…
Lay roses…Shed tears…
Share compassion, kindness
and love, empathy for loss of lives,
love, freedom, peace … Lay red roses
Mitali Chakravarty founded the borderlessjournal.com, which has just brought out its first hardcopy anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles: An Anthology of Writings from across the World.
