Death & Mercy

         DEATH & MERCY

                   .........A poem by Akshika Sharma

Two figures sat at the cliff, side by side

Above a forest set aflame.

The sky grew dark as fire cried,

And every ash recalled a name.

The trees, they crackled ancient cries

As bark and bone begin to fade.

The smoke curled up like whispered lies

From prayers that time itself betrayed.

Then Mercy, cloaked in grieving white,

Spoke soft as though to stir the dead:

"How does one mourn such brutal light-

A blaze where loved ones gently bled?"

Death watched the flame, yet didn't stir,

Her eyes like tombs that knew too much.

"Grief starts", she said, "When hearts confer-

I wanted all of it to touch.

To want to fall, to break in dust,

And gather ruins, one by one-

To open wide because you must

And hope beneath no sun.

He asked her then, "Why don't you begin?

Why never weep like mortal men?"

She smiled - A mask too tight and thin - 

And turned ger gaze away again.

"Grief is no stream one dares to taste -

It floods, it drowns - it doesn't ask.

To sip is folly, done in haste,

For I would lose my sacred mask.

I carry more than souls just passed -

The ones who soon will be in my arm. 

The ones long gone, whose echoes last,

In stone and soil and smoldered farm.

The fire eats the final thread

That tethered them to earth and breath.

And though they sleep, I loved the dead-

As only I could love through death.:

She rose, the shadows kissed her back

And walked beyond the cliff's embrace

While mercy watched the world turn black,

A softness sorrow could not trace.

And as the forest gave its cry,

He whispered, more to flame than friend:

"You never stopped. You just stood by-

And grieved a grief that has no end."