Garlands On Graveyard Tree Poem by Saroj Padhi

Those flowers in the garland hanging from a lone tree
that stands like mythical Belalasen, detached and free,
witness the last scene like fallen stars at the graveyard
without any desire to return to dead or receive reward;

bodies that clung to them with the hope of escaping fire
now lie but like obedient children of God on burning pyre,
seeking deep within to burn to full and turn into holy ash
as boughs, against dangling, dry blossoms in wind so dash;

ignored by streaming life in nearby traffic, quietly they burn
in love with smokes from pyre and dust from the busy roads
when some old epitaphs try toraise heads against a rude Sun
as bodies succumb to tongues of flame rising from logs' loads;

the afternoon merges flowers with pyres, and desires with fires
in dance of death, as rites resolve riddles turning ashes into mires.