Secondone
Dwarka’s Leader
Amir’s grandfather’s beard
is seventy-five years old,
says Appa.
The neighboring
grandfather’s beard caves
are what the
Kashmiri boy likes to float in.
Between the wrinkles of his face,
which hold compressed sorrows,
hangs a waterfall-like beard.
When Grandpa plays with
his grandson Amir,
he laughs.
The Kashmiri boy, however,
in Parama Pada (Indian Snakes and Ladders)
always rolls among the
snakes.
“Will a beard grow on me too one day?”
“In Parama Pada, whether pieces survive
depends on how many snakes bite them.”
Two days ago,
the Kashmiri boy went to bring his friend Amir,
but brought only his hand.
That day exploded for the grandfather.
In the dice rolled and scattered,
were the yellowed teeth of two men with guns.
The snakes on the Parama Pada board rose up
and coiled around the Kashmiri boy’s neck,
all the ropes becoming
the grandfather’s beard, twisting and turning.
In the skulls of the villains rolling dice,
a pendulum swing of sacrificed lives.
A lifetime spent
paying taxes to age,
a tax paid to live in a
slave nation.
The murder of thinking is
the tax paid to stay alive.
Between the white beard’s hairs,
shadows hidden away are
the taxes paid by Grandpa so far
to keep living.
As he draws cigarette smoke,
a glimmer jumps from his eyes
and shines – still remaining
life’s right.
Expanding sorrow,
submerged in it,
near the tree’s shade,
still loves the beard
two small eyes.
The grandfather, a risen tree,
in his eyes swells tears,
a white sap on his face,
dances with an ant
the Kashmiri boy.
Frozen like an unmoving glacier,
time and
tearful floods
erode and vanish
venomous ants.