A long unanswered prayer
Of green leaves clothed in brown,
Of brown earth, unearthed;
A yearn that fell on numb ears
Of a quill gasping, parched,
Of a wife’s hand unheld;
A want in unspoken words
Of birds to festoon the skies
In songs of shimmering shapes
Of snakes that know not
The bask in golden warmth.
A plea from trembling eyes
Of dogs bucking raised sticks
Of butterflies in choked flight
Of rivers thirsty for their own wet
Of winds tripping over soot
Of laughter & mirth unheard;
A desire of haste and rush
To catch their breath & marry
The gentle & pause,
Of books collected for nights
And moments saved for quality time
Of songs trapped in the shy
Of games & dice unrolled
Of friends one promised to reach
Of need that lost its way
In sales & purchasing power.
A wish, forgotten in the din
Of cash registers ringing
And traffic honking into
A future we thought we wished;
Braided in supply-chains that bind
A farmer’s hands to his plough
A labourer’s fate to skyscrapers
A sweeper’s life to your garbage.

And then they fell to their knees
The birds and quills and hands
And dogs and leaves and bees
And books and butterflies
And the slithering ones
And the unwavering rocks
And the winding rivers
And the once-laughing earth
They prayed to the mighty
But no whale, no mammoth
No Himalayas, no Amazon
No grand or powerful answered
Save the tiniest of tiny.
Gently, in no haste or rush
With no aide nor brother
With no wings nor claws,
With no education nor gold,
With no prejudice or love,
In no rush or theatrics,
With means so common that
Alarm felt embarrassing,
With no greed to devour
For its tread was the cure –
For souls gone astray
For minds that held the unseen
Dearer than the visible
Dearer than the hunger of myriad
Than the cries of the homeless.
In the clearing skies
In the sweetening waters
In the sway of trees
Cradling birds & fruit
In the silent valleys of silicon
As souls returned home,
Amidst the fear of sullying
Beyond what one can clean,
When all questions of “Why” cease,
Where none can wish harm
Worse than what has come to be;
In that hell to one
And heaven for everyone,
The little tiny spark
Began undoing the deeds
Of man’s unending greed.