Walking down one deserted street
Of my childhood hometown
Which, I remember, was made of joy once
Where I had spent my innocent years
Of untold mischievousness.
I felt like lying down on the ground
Only to feel how it feels to be alive again
I felt the heart beat
of the barren earth beneath me
beating like a dying man
slow but stubborn
I touched its soily skin
And caressed it all along
Suddendly, it cried with pain
There were scars all over
Scars of undeserving time
And regretful past
I tried to console it
Caressed it with my tears of concern
But it kept on sobbing like a child
And when I asked it of pain
I was answered by few stray stones
Lying all over it chest
One stone told me
Of losing its lovely home
In the backyard of the house
Which is there no more
Another told me of its joy of years
Lying at the bottom of an ancient stream
Being cleansed again and again
By faithful rains and trustworthy snows
Another stones still recovering from its pain
Of loss and dejection
Told me of the love
It used to get at the footsteps of a sacred shrine
Which was burnt
And rebuilt with foreign stones
Another one told me of anger
Of being held in young hands of hatred
And thrown with vengeance
Only to hurt its own heart
I couldn’t hear them all
For a while I stood there
Like one of them
And then when I was about to leave
A small lost stone in its soft stony voice
Cried and asked me of home
Which it couldn’t find anymore
Without consoling them any
I turned homeward
Which I wasn’t sure
Have those same familiar friendly stones around
I walked in silent soreness
An old stone lying on one bleeding sidewalk
Reminded me of my childhood
And asked me if I could recognize it
While I held it in my trembling fingers
And looked at its dusty black shine
I couldn’t hold my tears back
It was the same stone
Which I had preserved so many years
like a precious hard earned treasure
In my childhood years
And kept it safe
In the old ragged pocket
Of my grandmother’s phirin.
