Trying to keep the sweat from dripping into my eyes

I wonder if traversing down

they compare notes with my tears.

Looking at the leftovers

my eyes are drawn

to a single shoe, a shawl,

a three legged chair, a cloth doll.

In the horizon, following the finger

I see gaps in the coconut-lined shore

reminding me of a toothless mouth.

Driving by I see people standing

looking out at sea,

looking at the ground around them.

Is hope still stirring,

wishing for loved ones to be safe

on alien shores.

Are they wondering in disbelief

did I call this my home.

Where now the ground

is dumb, pretending to be deaf

to the anguished cries,

and heartrending silences.

I lose myself

in the liquid emptiness of two eyes,

a grandmother’s grief

at surviving the waves,

alone.

She smiles at hearing,

that miles away in Canada

women are thinking of women,

sending wordless comfort

across the waves.

April 25, 2005. Processing slowly, two weeks after my return from Batticaloa.