hawi lo par (in the library)

there is a darkness in these stacks,

rising from the stardust and skin

of other peoples’ memories.

our memories are buried

with the ancient dead

and grow as the

hawi-lo-par:

flowers of forgetting

or remembering

which?

i don’t recall.

—

Note:

On the way to mithi khua (land of the dead), the Mizo dead go through fields of ‘hawi lo par’ (flowers of not turning back), and drink ‘lung lo tui’ (water of no heartache). They can then pass happily into the afterlife, and no longer pine for those they've left behind.