A Skeleton At Roetang Pass (Himalayas) Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

When we were coming down
from the icy peak of Roetang Pass,
We saw a skeleton of a horse,
with its bony-head lying asunder.
A nice animal born to carry people
and take heavy load up and down the hills,
had been left to die in frosty winter.
It could have fetched a lot of money to the hill-folks.
But they have no time to give it a decent burial!
If it had been rolled down by torrents,
people could not be moaning for it.
May God bless it a long life in its next birth.
We were talking about its pathetic end
even after coming down the Pass,
forgetting not the pitiable gaze we had!
It could have bathed in the river Byas,
run through the vales wild
and drunk crystal water from the rivulets.
But its skeleton remains there,
for the tourists to make up stories.
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