Human Mules Poem by Mohammad Younus

Along the Silkroad,
Somehow it tugs at my heart,
A wild thought,
I might also pass away,
In a far-off land,
My mother waiting for me,
In her fortified home,
I am forlorn and forgotten,
From the Kashmiri diaspora,
In Dagistan,
Son of an unpaid porter,
Of Dogra Maharaja,
Stranded in a foreign land,
My people even now,
Used as human mules,
In Kashmir and Siachen,
Fossils of my elders,
Buried in snow deep,
Barely recognizable,
Because of the freeze of cold,
The falling snow flakes,
Cannot blunt the hard aches,
Nor mtach the stillness,
Of these martyr fossills

Mykoul