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A thousand and six years
have passed
since she sat down with
her head drooping
like a withered stalk.
If you go closer
she is a fresh flower
closer still
a dead stalk after all.
She sits, smells, stinks
she sits and does not
smell
-- an odourless stone that she
Is.

The inscriptions on the stone
hide a story
the bent head hides the
inscriptions
stories lie in
the forgotten grave.
Forgotten she is
but only till the thousand year
old wind passes that way.
Till it arouses
only to numb again.

The body of stone turns epitaph.

The epitaph that speaks
inscriptions that tell a story

© Jatin Gandhi, 1996