The word: an echo; a fantasy; a necessary trick
a smooth word
That makes belief
Oh, so outrageously intimate
Jaan se pyaari, Azadi!
The word was waiting
in crouching pose, gnawing
at the fodder, the fodder, the endless fodder.
different foods are cooking now,
different waters in the pot.
we, who realized too late
How precious everyone is, arrive now
to a forging: a future will appear
as we shift our gaze down to
our hands as historical hands.
Azadi: to be student in library, unthreatened.
by thick sticks in firm, lost hands?
Remember those inter-class competitions?
Sides I remember were assigned by slits
of paper pulled from that clueless bowl by those clueless hands
(debate in to the microphone
with a straight back
pulled back hair in neat pigtails,
ironed white uniform,
belief disregarded)
(desire. kamiyaabi: do something to me!)
We listened for instruction, not transformation
tell me then, how did you learn?
to ripple through these thick polluted waters
with such integrity, such foolish hope?
The author wishes to remain anonymous.