no smell of ash
the wind whispers
and there is no smell of ash
or the creaking sounds
of a world turning to rust
the wind howls
and there is no smell of ash
or the creaking sounds
of a world turning to rust
and in the end
everything changes
and everything
remains the same
i dreamt you died
i dreamt you died
with the bitter still in your teeth
i dreamt you died
with the bitter still in your teeth
and the slightly rancid smell of your futility filling the spaces
and the spaces between the spaces
i dreamt you died
with the bitter still in your teeth
and the slightly rancid smell of your futility filling the spaces
and the spaces between the spaces
all bloated with a parchedness that
no pinprick could release
i dreamt you died
then woke to realise
you had
hawi lo par/ in the library
there is a darkness in these shelves
rising from the stardust and skin
of other peoples’ memories
our memories are buried
with the ancient dead
and grow as the
hawi-lo-par
flowers of forgetting
or remembering
which?
i don’t recall
On the way to mithi khua (land of the dead), the Mizo dead went through fields of ‘hawi lo par’ (flowers of not turning back), and drank ‘lung lo tui’ (water of no heartache). They could then pass happily into the afterlife, and no longer pine for those they left behind.
