[Poem] Salvation

Remember what we were told?
They extracted promises from us
when this journey we commenced
They assured us salvation
if we could
if only we could
get this horse to the destination

Try retrospection and you will realise
For them, we never were important
Only the horse was
Come what may to us
we were to endure this journey

In them, we believed
In them, we placed our trust
Unmindful of our hunger and thirst
We fed the horse, quenched its thirst
We bathed it, brushed its mane
In its beauty we were lost for a while

The ungrateful animal
never gave us back what it got
Instead,
it bit us, stomped all over us
The hoof marks are still fresh

Let us not now debate
whether we killed it
or it died its natural death
Truth, as it is today, is that
with this corpse on our shoulders
we cannot walk the length anymore

Let us bury it here and now
and walk
Walk on different paths, perhaps
I am sure they must have bluffed us
This must be our destiny
and the salvation they talked about
See, how happy we are
If not, let us take our chances
Walk further on our chosen paths
to another salvation on another day

Vijay © 4th December, 2006