THE JUNGLE
When you go home
Tell them and say
For their tomorrow
We gave our today.
--on the Memorial at Kohima
TODAY S EPITAPH
When you come home do tell us
How you did there live without us.
Alas you now come in silence,
As we our griefs commence.
a possible epitaph on a future Memorial
IT WAS THEN
Driving through the long drawn roadway,
I stood aghast at the storm on my way,
From a distance I saw the long winding snake,
End near a mountain beside a lake.
I saw far into the distant many a mile,
A long a winding river, like the Nile,
In the land now called Bangla Desh,
This later became sonar (golden) desh.
It was calm and shining, the waters still,
Yet many a boats were showing a kill,
By those men, or may be women,
I took them then to be ordinary fishermen.
My eyes then in disbelief did discern,
As I did to my Mess return.
Stark nakedness unfolded my camera,
Aghast it was an incredible aura.
That vision so clear still is in my mind,
Years later the negative I could not find.
It was a time, long, long, very long ago,
They were once men of valour and now of woe
vision.
I like the wording of It Was Then. It's very dramatic. Today's epitaph I'm not so sure about...
"When you come home do tell us
How you did there live without us.
Alas you now come in silence,
As we our griefs commence."
The timing & everything like that is fine. But the first two lines sound trivial or casual by comparison to the emotion of the last two lines.
 Allergies.. no relief?!?
 Religion in the workplace? |