24000
Beneath the weight
of bleeding hands
the gravedigger bends ~
too busy to sleep
his hands calloused and cracked
bear the brunt of war
each shovelful of earth
a silent scream
a testament to the scale of death
a ledger of loss etched in soil
The smell of death lingers
a ghostly shroud
a bitter reminder of what was
and what will never be again
By evening of the next day
the graveyard stretches wider
its borders
creeping like a shadow
across the scarred land
Massive death, destruction
violations, deprivation
driven to famine
to nothingness
to dust
No earned respite
until the last body is buried
until the last prayer is whispered
into the vacancy of oblivion
Prayers for the dead
have become a ritual
a fragile thread to the divine . .
a plea for meaning
in the face of madness
a n d t h e n . .
a cry resets the chaos
a baby girl awakes in pain
her tiny body trembling
her future hanging by hope and faith
She was in her mother’s arms
when the shell hit
cradled in love
now embraced by ruin
She is the generation of the future
the fragile hope that must live
as the world dissolves around her ~
The gravedigger pauses
his shovel trembling in his hands
He looks at the child
then at the rows of unmarked graves
he wonders if the earth will ever heal
if the living will ever outnumber the dead
But For Now he Digs . .
row after row of brown dirt mounds
some marked some not
a graveyard tended for decades
a vivid picture of the scale of death
and the fragile aching hope ~
that one day
the digging will end
© mingoáo
