The Story of a Severed Leg
By Dr Rudhramoorthy Cheran
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.