I am writing the story of a severed leg.

A road that begins in the mountains

runs through this barren land to the city,

now lies distraught.

The story of war mixed with blood

in scattered fragments

like restless ghosts,

follow the road in grief.

The tears of wounded trees,

settle on the marks

left by vehicles of well-meaning NGOs.

The dust covers the tears,

indifferent, like an undertaker

covering the body of an unclaimed corpse.

Dismembered by war,

the road survives;

I saw;

where the road forks,

a half-broken milestone;

on it sat a skull.

On this barren road

consumed with thirst

turning toward the forest,

I saw,

beneath the Palai tree

a severed leg.

A thousand stories rose

to fill the forest from that leg lying without protest.

Those stories displaced

the wondrous tales and visions

the forest acquired at birth,

long before memory’s time.

The displaced stories and beliefs

in diasporic lands

in the temples of Tamils,

in their myriad lives,

now hang,

embodiments of sin.

Beneath those,

compassion in darkened rooms,

the irresponsibility of distance,

I see in these walking corpses.

I saw in the forest engulfing pain, courage, sorrow, oppression, despair – the severed leg.

I saw, on the tomb of my dreams, scattering its stories in silence,

the severed leg.