Marigolds Falling Poem by Laura Lee (Davis) Snyder

A shaking from the earth
sets a wailing from the towns.
Smoke of burning rises stinging,
funeral flames all around.

Grieving filters through rough gravel
purified in circling change.
India knows the way of dying;
their gods have taught them well.
India knows the plagues will follow.
Who'll be left to light the pyre?

From glazed eyes and shoulders caved,
a man faces the camera and speaks,
'Nine from my family-gone...
Our loved ones are piled in mud streets.
...No more wood to burn the dead.'

Hungry, the earth was hungry.
Ten thousand, twenty thousand,
blood and flesh, man and beast
salt the earth to appease its pangs.
The ground is full-to-the-throat
and vomits death.

The cloying stench of death arises
it takes the breath of India's flowers.
Who'll be left to feed the children?
Mother, ayah, brother-gone.
Marigolds are everywhere, yellow
petals fall to the ground.