onward

photos courtesy — Liam Edwards, Priscilla Du Preez and Bianca Ackermann on Unsplash

a year away
now they will
inaugurate roads unfinished
invoke graves
ignore promises made
make more grandiose ones
like someone who
has tasted blood
and knows
how easy it is beat us down

broken
lost
slowly but surely
the powerful drive us
into a state so rotten
the bard would change
the country’s name
were he to write
his epic now

we have no one
no Elvis
no Ali
no Seeger
no Faiz
no Sahir
no Kaifi
no god of any kind
out of the pantheon
will descend
its just you
and its just me

so if
you have a song
sing it
you have a verse
say it
you find a word
write it
you see a barricade
storm it

don’t mind
the summer outside
or the rain and the winter
awaiting their turn
hotter, wetter, colder

get ready
we have
a country to reclaim
a union to sustain

Onward