A Morsel of Food

-K Radhakumar

My love is dead.
In life, she was beautiful.
In death, she is cold
And ugly too.
No dirge, no song
Over the dead;
Please, please don’t sing
In memory of the dead.

There is a father in Asia Minor;
He has a hungry family of 8 to feed
And he is jobless for months on end.
Thousands are going hungry in Africa;
There ethnic tensions between two warring groups
Has re-defined the humanity of Jesus,
There in the jungles of Africa
The vultures are better than humans,
There bigger animals hunt
And kill the weaker ones
BUT THERE NO ANIMAL IS FOUND GUILTY OF MURDER.
In the civilized human society
One’s father and mother are murdered in broad daylight
And one’s sister raped inside the cathedral.

Do you know
The poor has a story to tell
A short and simple story?
The story of the poor
Who are more dead than alive
Finds no mention in the pages of history.
For the poor
No goal no riches
But a morsel of food
And a drink of water.