Up close and personal with death <br />A catalogue of soulless formalities <br />Business rituals mundane matters <br />Penny pinching nitty-gritties of life <br />The humdrum chaos of grief and ceremony <br />The dear departed turned merely <br />To a Body, numbered, queued for cremation <br />Shrouded in white the inert selves moved along <br />Like baggage lying on cold crowded platforms <br />The makeshift bamboo stretchers wait patiently <br />The metallic warmth of the yawning electric furnaces <br />The blazing fire turning in an instant <br />The well-beloved into a miniature mound of ashes <br />The burnt bones smoulder fiery on charred wheel burrows <br />Waiting to be set free by unaccustomed tender hands <br />The wizened old river muddy with use <br />Indifferent to the grieving cinders offer no shelter <br />Distancing lonely souls from matters of life and death<br /><br />Sutapa Chaudhuri<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/death-rites/
