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In Jaffna 

Young people

Are still writing poetry

About Nandikadal

They are writing about

Being born a girl

And dowries

And arranged marriages

But also about

Nandikadal

They are reading poetry

In Tamil and the passion

Bursts out of their lips

And eyes

They are writing about

Water crises

And death

And I who have written about

The war realize

Am illiterate 

In war

And though I cannot understand 

The language 

I can hear the fury

And feel the fire

They have not outgrown 

The pain 

Like

we shouldn’t outgrow

The memory

Before forgetting we need

To remember

This lagoon of lament

And the restless dead 

that led us

There.

Young people

In Jaffna

Are still reciting poetry

About

Nandikadal

(Published in “Healing a Fractured World” by “Revolutionary Poets Brigade” San Francisco 2023)