Hiroshima
Originally written by: Agye
Translated from Hindi by: Abdur Rehman Khan, Independent Artist
Hiroshima
One day in a flash
the sun rose
not on the horizon,
at the town square:
sunlight dropped
not from the space,
but from fissioned earth.
The shadows of humankind
directionless
fell all around- that sun
did not rise from the east, it
fell in a flash
at the centre of the town:
As if all the wheels of
death-star’s chariot
disintegrated
in all ten directions.
sunrise-sunset of a split second!
Of just a blazing moment’s
scene sucking noon.
And then?
Shadows of Humankind,
elongated, did not erase:
rather humans were evaporated.
The shadows are now written
on smouldered boulders
engraved on devasted roads.
A manmade sun
turned man into vapour
and absorbed it.
Engraved on the stone
this burned shadow
is a human testimony.