Via Dolorosa Poem by Jay Kasturi

She said she never had any say,
not in the sun,
not under the clouds.
Birth is the beginning,
of what, she would wonder.
The tongues with an answer’s claim
are silent.
Then on a sunny morning,
she had her say
before a stone-faced man
in the shadow of woman in a blindfold;
the crowd grown unlistening,
her words, all in one breath, unwavering.
Then she left,
walking bent on a trampled line
of lost souls, tarrying
for a moment, under the statue of Mary.
Mary, with her shoulders in marble frills,
stooped under the weight
of a cross heavier than her son’s.

(2002)