The Day the Earth Shook--Kutch Earthquake

The gaily clad women throng the swift river,
clattering pots, sit with mouth-watering brims.
Every silhouette reflects the colors of life;
the shrines echo with the chanting of hymns.
Suddenly the eyes wake up to a wail,
"The dream was short-lived," they now muse.
Life couldn't have made them more famous,
and death has made them the headline news.
The Pipal tree still stands, but desolate;
amidst tombs of rubble, the epitaphs speak,
"Where are the sturdy men?" they rummage,
as their tears are stolen by a future bleak.
Yet life lives and laughs, so does the grandma,
a child, too, has survived the ghastly quake.
Yet the wheel stands without the potter;
the dead farmer may never return to his rake.
The chattels of life do we stock and keep,
but then destiny is not a soothsayer's word.
In a flick of a moment we lose everything,
unsung, unread, unforgiven, and unheard.