On a board of chess, both sides stand face to face
Using wise moves, strategies and tacts.
No drones, no justified assassinations
No sneaky cyber-attacks.
Two rooks, bishops and knights, both sides have by rights.
Those are the rules of the game. For both sides, the same.
Some things are clearly wrong and others that are right.
Whether your pieces are black, or brown or white.
The way the moves are made,
the way the game is played,
a knight is often not the first to be slayed.
A murder in plain sight
Yet, everyone kept quiet.
No criticism. No outcry?
The killers had good reason. That is why.
They always do.
But do they speak the truth?
Who knows? Do you?
Vietnam, Iraq and now this.
For what? For who?
He was someone’s dad, someone’s son,
A military leader, not holding a gun.
This was an act of cowardice, just for fun.
Guns are a sport in the land
from where the assassin came.
The killers proudly laid claim
To this, their ‘good deed’.
Knowing full well that yet again,
they are sowing a seed.
A seed of death and conflict.
Within a week, a stampede.
Multiple counter-strikes
Hitting innocent planes and passers-by.
Who are the ones that die?
People like you and I.
While the international bully
Keeps on keeping on fighting
In the name of self-defence,
‘Freedom and Liberty’?
When a gun is fired, two people die.
The one hit by the bullet
and the one who let it fly.
War is not the answer. Please.
How can we tolerate this?
Instead of wrapping the world in daisy-chains,
We are covering it in wreaths.
(Footnote: Sixty thousand war veterans, many of them young men, have died by suicide in the USA in 2008-2017. On an average 17 to 20 suicides per day and the rates are not falling despite massive efforts.
71 years ago a random line was drawn across the map of our country by a historical giant who sat thousands of miles away from us and felt compelled to make a decision in a hurry. Not surprisingly, it was a bad decision that left a huge gash on the chest of Mother Earth that still bleeds. That historical icon didn’t care who we were, whether we were Indian or Pakistani, whether we were dead or alive. He is dead and gone but still winning. Let us not let him win. This is a new world. We can change history.
kidsaregifts 