Who Will Bring The Nallah Mar Back? Poem by Mohammad Younus

From the Dal Lake, Nallah Mar, akin to a serpent,
Slowly, gently, flowed one time through the downtown,
The children swimming, and playing Dive and Seek,
Which neither the sky nor the earth have since seen,
I would swim ahead of all, mine friends followed me,
The grandeur of our childhood Kashmir was unique,
Our dreams to be great swimmers we told through splashes,
Competing the weeds, we swam across the Dal Lake,
Burst forth from our lovely eyes, our dream to be Dal-crossers,
The wondrous ripple and splash kisses touched our bodies,
Alas! Nallah Mar was dumped with city-waste by the Srinagar municipality,
It changed into a cesspool that gave out highly stinking smell,
Then, the visionless city planners killed it by filling it with soil,
From then on the sky has broken apart,
The Nallah Mar has been turned into a spiral road,
Nallah Mar is buried, like a martyr in Unknown grave,
If it is exhumed some day, how much overjoyed we will be.

MyKoul