The Valley Weeps Again
by Ramki Bellur
The valley, once cradled in whispered prayers,
now shivers beneath blood-soaked snow.
The chinar trees do not sway today—
they bow their heads,
as if mourning the sons they could not shelter.
There are mothers
clutching torn shawls that once held lullabies,
now stained with dust and silence.
Their eyes—
dry, yet drowning—
search the sky
for a reason
for a voice
for a god
that might explain why
their child’s name
echoes only in the wind.
Fathers walk the lanes
with shoulders cracked beneath the weight
of grief too sacred to scream,
too brutal to bury.
And the children…
dear God, the children—
they lie still,
crayons in hand,
as if they tried to color peace
into the last breath they took.
Their notebooks flutter in the breeze,
empty pages waiting for dreams
that will never be dreamt.
What cruelty shrouds a heart
to make a weapon of faith?
To twist belief into bullets
and hurl them
at strangers
as if lives were nothing
but dust in a ledger of vengeance?
The mountains echo no gunfire now,
only the sobs of a people
who’ve lost too much
to remember what hope felt like.
Kashmir bleeds again—
and the world watches,
as it always does,
with candlelight vigils
and forgetfulness
waiting just one scroll away.
But in the soil,
where blood meets earth,
a whisper grows:
Not revenge.
Not hate.
Just a cry for tomorrow—
a tomorrow that may not come
but still dares
to be mourned for.