I met a little girl today
Named Joy.
I climbed over a mountain,
And sighed at the shades of green of a forest
So full of trees, you’d think these were the tresses of the
earth.
Briars bruised my shoulder and a thorn pinched my thumb,
Almost as if, instructed by Joy, to stop me.
Like a child left alone too long, pushes your love away.
So I climbed on, leaves cushioning my footfalls
And grassy sides of the mountain,
Half gold, half green scrunching underneath.
Joy sits on a side of the mountain,
Watching the thick forest change colours
With each passing cloud and piercing sun.
You’d almost miss her, left alone, under the history of the
ruins up above.
The gallows after all, are more terrifying than a little
girl.
Joy, born 31 December 1908,
Died 5th June, 1909.
An infant, buried.
Almost, as if in her own backyard.
And no epitaph to guide her own.
Except the fading whiteness of the marbletop.
Lt. Molesworth, you did an injustice.
To a white baby.
As much as to the brown Indians you enslaved and hanged
here.
Graves, don’t they say, shouldn’t be left solitary.
The dead too, cannot live alone.
Especially, not so far out with the silence of leopards.
Always cautious, always preying.
View from Joy's grave site
