THE UNSURE ONES
PURUSHOTTAMA
How
quickly they decide
This
right and that is wrong
and bring into their voice
vehemence, intensity and
shrillness
and in their eyes the look of conviction
to convert the world.
Time
was when sword in hand
They
would set out for crusades
determined to bring light to the
benighted
–
though in the process spreading death and destruction
–
such was their faith in their being
in the right and entitled to chastising the
ignorant.
The
bodies now they dare not hack and hew
unless the
nations mutually agree to:
they are mercilessly hurting, lacerating
all such whose minds refuse to be bent and
follow
the threatening self-appointed jeremiahs.
One
such is enough with militancy in speech
born of unwavering faith in self-righteousness
consumed by the passion to make
others like himself
to create hell-agony for the unsure ones
waiting, vacillating and
groping
floundering through uncertainties,
believing
in postponing to clinch the issue
and say the last word with a dismissive
gesture.
When
a gang is organized and dissent is stifled
with a strait-jacket for its emblem,
conformity like an armour with no chink its creed,
the spirits that are aflutter with new
possibilities
disdaining to perch on neat
formulas
are sure to be “cabin’d,
cribbed, confined.”