I would photograph scars.
If only I had my old
Nikon,
and a lion’s marigold
skin,
I would camouflage there
to photograph scarred
silence,
the silence of war.
A woman’s breast: Nipples
surrounded by dark
circles
were exposed.
Her hair’s matted,
bangles crushed.
This death had no
witness.
This death required no
explanation.
Beneath the half burnt
cradle
Mother was sleeping her
deepest sleep.
If there had been no
railing,
baby could’ve escaped.
No.
No new born walks.
Only Siddhartha Gautama
did.
A young man was
paralyzed: Spine was shot.
I would photograph his
death.
When wounds are deep
inside bones,
death is as calm as a
dead saint.
My shutter blinked.
Aimed.
Then shot the focus,
Shot the scar-like bullet
holes in school walls.
Children would rest in
peace
That was the peace,
literally.
I would photograph their
scarred tiny feet
which were not allowed to
rise up
in homeland’s soil.
But even hunter –
gatherers
had had a moment
to root in where they
wanted to.
In monsoons, gutters were
full.
Then burst.
I would photograph water.
Why wouldn’t it burn when
shelled?
People under legitimate
barbarism:
some without limbs, some
without eyes,
some without skin.
Some still breathing,
squatted motionlessly
beside those resting bodies
as though keeping vigils.
When they kept the last
one,
knowing that there would
be nobody left
to keep vigils
for them, I would
photograph the absence.
The end page of a poetry
book. Abandoned, uncooked rice.
A fragment of spectacles.
An empty sparrow cage.
Bits and pieces of love.
Shattered clay pots.
Smoke.
I would photograph
blindness.
In blind sun,
scattered, scarred
petals,
in every colour and
shape,
would make new undefined
colours and shapes.
2014
© Subhadra Jayasundara
