Jhelum's Run

Drawn from the recent floods that submerged Kashmir in India,due to the overflowing of the Jhelum river.

She breached her boundaries and ran amok,

Reclaiming all she ought not to have owned, though nurtured

Her voice once a soothing lullaby that sought to calm the noisiest mind,

Now a raging cacophony piercing through the eerie calm;

 

Her swelling wrath swallowed all that had drawn from her endlessly without much thought,

Naively believing it an inheritance to ambitiously contain and define her contours!

Regardless of how they lived, prayed, played, loved and fought, she took them all -

The forgetful and the ones that remembered; the ones who believed and the disbelievers; the punishers and those that revered.

Nothing mattered.

If they ate the pig or didn’t eat the cow; prayed five times a day or none at all; spoke one language or ten; could walk unbridled or only follow; could think or not speak at all; walked on four legs or two; loved either way or both…

 

They are one now, she thought as she retraced her steps,

Enveloped in her warm earthy silt, having returned to the womb discredited

At one with the universe, at one with truth. 

Differences washed away, essences mingled, disguises cast, burdens liberated…

Free to trespass boundaries, humbled to join the sea, potent to nourish roots,

Floating formless in the sky only to tear up and drench the blue goddess, acquiesced

They now journey with HER - the Mother,

Little specks of dust generously spawning life around.