The graves of my ancestors in my backyard
have turned into homes of rats and rabbits,
into lines leading to the great unknown.
I stood in front of my father’s house
and watched a battalion of rats skip out of the grass,
dash into bunkers, never to come out again,
until the clouds wore black, red and yellow.
I have lived for a long time with death,
survived a thousand bombings and bullets;
I have smelled a shortcut to eternity,
But I have no regrets if my grave
grows to nurture rabbits and cockroaches.
My ancestors fought with walking sticks,
some with their bare palms and fingers,
when pointing was shooting a grenade,
dizzying along the road but with power,
armed with charms, guns and bayonets,
fortified in the river of men of valour.
Many fought with their souls’ conviction,
that righteousness was the weapon of war,
the eyes of the fox that burn at the back of evil.
My ancestors fought in the First World War,
in the Second World War, they were conquerors;
even their terrifying gods left their thrones
to chart with them on how to be heroic,
Yet, coming home unleashed worse disasters,
than the trenches and swamps of Burma.
How do I mourn those who mourned themselves alive,
or celebrate those who celebrated with their gods?
How do I weep for those stellar ancestors,
whose death ripped off the eyes of their gods,
and the blood of their gods paid for their oversights?
How often I have stared at my mother’s grave,
where the smoke of freshness rose to the sky,
and defied the cool dreams of my youth,
the archive of leaves inscribing each of my stares,
and taking delivery of my pains and sorrow.