Azadi - Marcella Boccia

The floating home on Dhal Lake (Marcella Boccia) I lived on a houseboat a silent vessel drifting on the blue of Dhal Lake where the lotus flowers bloomed like whispers of forgotten dreams their petals open to the sky as if waiting for the sun to remember its warmth In the mornings I would rise with the light still soft on the water and take the shikara a slender boat gliding through the mist that...

The curfew on Dhal Lake (Marcella Boccia) The curfew came like a shroud quiet and heavy laying itself over the lake like a veil of silence dimming the world outside and keeping me within the narrow walls of my houseboat anchored to the water anchored to a time when the horizon seemed far and yet was always too close The lake usually so full of life was empty in those hours the shikaras stayed dock...

The factory of fire (Marcella Boccia) I walked into the shadows of the factory where the whispers of revolution were shaped in the heat of a forge where hands that once held dreams now molded metal into weapons The smell of oil and iron filled the air heavy like the weight of years pressed down on the hearts of men who had learned to fight not with words but with fire The walls were lined with fra...

In the shadows of war (Marcella Boccia) In the dark of a war-torn night We met like stars in a sky of smoke Your eyes a fire I could not fight A blaze that burned through the cloak of hope You from a land of ancient song With a tongue that hummed of history’s grace And I a stranger to your world so long Lost in the chaos searching for a trace Our hands brushed hesitant but bold A touch that defied...

The cry of the Women in Black (Marcella Boccia) They wear the black a veil that drapes over their grief a shroud of sorrow that no eyes can pierce no words can soothe They stand in the streets silent but for the cry that trembles in the air a cry that carries through the valley and echoes through the mountains an inconsolable sound that the world does not hear Their husbands taken in the night pul...

The road to Srinagar (Marcella Boccia) Two days of dust and sun the jeep rattled over roads of stone past the cries of villages silent with fear and mountains that whispered of wars fought long before we arrived the air thick with the scent of fire and the hum of tires on fractured earth I saw the long line of military trucks a river of men and weapons flowing like a dark tide toward the valley wh...