Thinking of Spring in Summer: Martyrs’ Day in Kashmir

by Huma Dar
July 13, 2013

for Naheed Shah-Sheikh

in conversation with the attached photograph by an anonymous photographer…

In my homeland
beloveds are planted as seeds
singly, or in mass
23, 54, 77, 131…
(each madness has its method —
each massacre its algorithm)
marked, unmarked, empty graves
or those packed like sardines
in football fields where children once played
or open meadows where people once prayed. 

In my homeland
the bodies of my martyrs
even in death
are deemed seditious,
dangerous, explosive.   

In my homeland
empty tombstones are looted
beloveds incarcerated dead
in Indian jails, entombed
in Indian barracks
drowned in waters ankle-deep. 

In my homeland
bodies cold yet bursting with life,
wandering souls
tick, tick, tick
haunt the collective conscience
of a nation
that doesn’t know it died
nor when. 

In my homeland
cowards scan my graveyards
frisk my ghosts
try their craven best
to buy my spirits
brainwash souls
but one day 

in my homeland
my dead will burst open,
blossom, explode
into a frenzy of Spring
a billion pregnant buds
Pollock’s canvas of life.  

And on that day
no one, but no one,
will stem the tide
of Azadi
in my homeland.