The Partitioned Wailing-Wall
for Alan Painter*
I have put into many ports
labelled:
handle with care
stood on the wharfs, bare-shouldered
up to the knee, unloading
cashew and coconuts
and then set sail again
finding no substance to trade
with
I have seen the waters rising
and the walls submerge
the roofs converge
the children washed on
the battlements
I have heard the chasm cries
Stifled under jackboots
the whimpering against walls
lost somewhere
in the hoarse
Gött mit Uns!
Come home, she cried, strappadoed
in the lap of jettisoning tribes
Come home, my weary ones
home to toil and die
labour and sigh
curse and cry
Did he not withdraw to that
holy backwater by Milan
and with the cup of his Confessions
bathe his horrent sins away
I listened to a story
that our first quarter
remembered to tell
but the waters of the Himavant
had long curdled
in the breast
of the suttee wife
I listened long
in the myopic light
disfigured in the white heat
of our Enlightenment
to the trapped voices of inquiry
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poem by T. Wignesan
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