1913issue6online

203 01:45:00:00 In these moments between the endless chain of flowers I think of the mothers who placed me here without any order or dis- cernable reason. I’ve watched them bless silver, gold and brass with devotion. Inside myself, like fire, are their stories. Inside these moments I ask them questions with no answers because the chain stretched before I breathed and spoke. Nynamma did you fear the unexplained diseases that robbed you of your children, the sixteen who found their escape in an early death? You married into this task barely older than your children who died so young. Your husband, returning home from the open hillsides ofslate, having mined it for his wealth, building his riches out ofthe black rock, did he only have one wish of you? That of a child? And when he achieved that was your task done, holding on to the wall, aged with black eyes and the white strands of hair you had left?

1913issue6online

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