migration

Migration  

 

In this rich flat landscape there are no stones they had to

travel to the far mountain and with mule and cart it was

a long arduous journey. Stones were only used as base for

houses and as grave stones, but since these were stolen

so this practice ended, the dead had to do with wooden

crosses which tend to rot when it rains. Farmers buried

their stones under a mass of soil, for safety mounds of

them dotted the flat landscape and made it less monotone.  

 

Modern time, a railway line stretches across the land and

ends in a haze were the mountain begins, stones are now

a common thing, way, all and sundry has one, the poorest

even have gravelled strewn back yards. A clever man decided

to open a rise and sell stones a souvenir as a memory of

the past, when life was idyllic, but he found a mass grave,

not only human skeletons but also household goods, toys

and musical instruments.

 

Two tribes had lived here till one tribe had decided to seek

their fortunes on the mountain’s other side, an early mass

exodus; they had vanished into a void, no one could find  

the smallest trace; a mystery no more. “My granddad didn’t

know this or his granddad and before that history is a blur,

someone else must be responsible for this mass murder”

the people who live here say. But I wonder who invented

the fine tale about burying of the stones?