Witness to a Massacre

There is a cemetery at Omaha beach
near the sea.
There is another
seven thousand feet above
here, under a mountain lea.

At Omaha, near the sea,
lie buried
nine thousand and seven eighty-three,
who fought the war gloriously
laying down their lives
for their country.

Here at Pahalgam
under the mountain lea,
in an undeclared war
there has been a killing spree
of a whole pinewood.
The neatly sawn stumps
of every tree
stand in rows
on their graves underneath
as a mute testimony
to the brutal tyranny
not of Hitler or Mussolini
but of criminals at large
from amongst you and me.