Graveyards and Sunflowers
The people came and the people went, but they never stayed.
They were the men in white. Towering frames with humbling humility. They were the ones who dug the Graves, lowered the bodies and chanted the prayers. Subsequently, they were also the ones who planted the sunflowers.
Then there were the midnight men — the marauders and the grave robbers. Commissioned by the medical college down the block, these midnight men bribed their way into the cemeteries and pulled up fresh corpses. Disturbing the peace of the newly departed.
Throughout them all, the sunflowers remained. Watching over the bodies lucky enough to be rotten, watching over the souls of the long forgotten.
The sunflowers here and the sunflowers up above, both rise at the crack of dawn and fall with the death of day. Withering, only to be reborn the next morning. Earthly or otherworldly, it doesn’t matter — the sunflowers stay the same.
The graveyard has existed since the day humans stepped on this land. Increasing in size, and centuries later, reduced to a plot of government land.
Buddhist, Muslim or Christian, they are all buried there.
Peace, for the dearly departed.
The sunflowers have always been there too. From the first men in white who planted them, to the men planting them now.
They watch over them all
An essay I wrote for a writing class a long time back. Inspired by Arundhati Roy.
