By Bharti Mehra
CALLING IT PEACE
From a frameless window, the flag unfurls for peace.
They make a desolation and call it peace.
From an empty sky, bombs descend like snow.
The child builds a man out of dust, evaporating peace.
Stubborn boy, he clings to his mother’s lifeless breast.
He’s learnt: how life abandons slowly and then at once, retreats in peace.
The bomb melts his mouth; his rings rehearse for a role:
they will adorn a collection, a memento in a time of peace.
They have hollowed out our city, the sirens deafen —
me. I crouch to my knees, praying for deceptive peace.
They have stolen our gods, cursed our children’s cries.
They have made a silence and named it peace.
On a sombre night, another news: we are close to victory.
He lowers himself into a pit stealing forbidden peace.
Only five villages to avert a crisis: the inevitable ruin of the
hundred brothers. Even Krishna couldn’t plead them into peace.
Valiant, brave — they were men of steel. Embellish uniformed
corpses wrapped in flags: they have borne the bounty of peace.
In run-down carriages, in gilded halls, the men shook hands.
They have signed another Versailles for peace.
They’ll divide a population, conquer an enclosure on our spine.
Decked in a suit, receiving a medal for restoring us to peace.
Let the winds whisper our wounds in time before
Macondo’s rains drown us in empty promises of peace.
From Kurukshetra to Krithia to Kyiv, the old wheel rusts
but turns. They will again make a desert and call it peace.
(Note: The italicised fragments are various translations/adaptations of Tacitus’ quote: ‘Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant’.)
Bharti Mehra is a young researcher, poet and writer based in Chandigarh. She writes verse, particularly ghazals, and short literary fiction. Her work has appeared in the Tribune.
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