Surfer's poem: Shame

We?re crying again.Tears tracing on a nameless face, and people you cannot erase, watching you and crying, writes Neha Sharma.

We’re crying again.
Tears tracing on a nameless face
And people you cannot erase,
Watching you and crying.

This temple of faith.
Holy ground stained the red of youth
And beyond. This nightmare, this is truth,
Truth that you cannot deny.

A droplet of time,
Falling upon this puddle of life. Here
Ripples of destruction disappear.
Rubble, death, and our tears.

These are our tears.
These are our people, this, our home.
There’s only so far you can roam
Before you must look back.

Can you see us?
We are your children, your parents, there.
Your family weeping in despair
Of your blindness.

You cannot ignore us.
We permeate every moment of your life.
On our faces, hunger, death, strife.
These droplets on a puddle.

But simple droplets on a puddle.
How can you face our faces everyday?
How can find chutzpa to look away
From these tearful faces?

A hateful droplet.
Our faithful people sacrificed on holy ground, screaming, crying,
Innocent victims of an ungodly hate, dying.
And you ignore them.

And not just you.
A world of wordly interest.
A show of stone-cold bosoms test
The strength of empty justice.

Do not forget.
These crowds are people, this face has a name.
These souls lost in time, and you are to blame.
But you just don’t care.

We’re crying again.
That you are deaf to our plea.
Disgusted by your apathy.
You have crushed us into oblivion.

We will disappear,
As will our tears, from common memory.
But we love and forgive you. You see,
You are still one of us.

You will always be one of us.
And though you have forgotten who you are,
The day you remember us is not far,
And you will die in the shameful shadow of our tears.

We pity you.

*******
-Neha Sharma, USA
We - the nameless faces of the crowds; victims of time, victims of
hate, victims of your ignorance
You - the ignorant NRI, the reader, the one who has forgotten and
doesn't care

HT Image