Wartime

Our country is not warring right now

With any other country

Still, you have got to know

A state of war has been declared

Barbed wires at the borders, beyond that – prohibition

In olive-coloured clothes

Alertness of the woodlands

And so, with much added caution

One steps into the forest

To the sound of bullets, a fusillade, do you hear it?

Within wordlessness, now

Are bitter words of wartime

An explosion created by anger’s frenzied regret

Is to be deflected – towards safety

By lowering a trench that lies only within your heart

Did you know this?

Here, the worldly-being

Recalls the honeyed moment

Just before the war began

The sanyasi

Seeking peace after the war

Sits bent-kneed

Even the poets

From the trenches, through their binoculars

Watch the seasons turn

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