This poem was written for global unity soon after the 9/11 tragedy. Pun intended !
Few misguided men
Armed with hatred
On a mission of terror,
Rip through the twin towers of
Technology and material prosperity
In a nightmarish show of unprecedented horror.
They take thousands of innocent lives
Including their own,
All right-thinking minds on earth are shocked
While the angels in heaven gather and moan.
Angry and hurt, with high-tech bombers and missiles
Intending peace and justice
Powerful nations wage a war,
Uprooting tens of thousands from their homes
And ravaging a land miles and miles,
While the one person they set out to find
Continues to evade and hide, near or afar.
Even if he were captured,
Living or dead,
And "justice brought to him",sooner than late
How many more Ladens all this will create,
More revengeful, more misguided and more irate ?
In the name of God, call Him Allah or Christ,
Why we do such things
Whether as an individual or as a nation,
That hurt God's ideals grievously ?
Violence is evil, whether it is for religion,
Or, civilization -
Whether as cause or effect !
One Vietnam was enough for all mankind -
Let not the prophets of all lands die in vain, with nothing to find ?
One wrong cannot be righted by another ?
Let us not pass judgment on one another !
In a war like this, no one wins -
If one side loses, so does the other.
Religions may be many, the Spiritual Truth is but one;
Lands let there be many, humanity is just one.
The answer to hatred,
Can only be LOVE,
Dear Laden and Dear Bush -
Though we are free to make a choice
To perish in war, or live in truce ;
To vociferously argue if the object resembles a snake or a wall
Or understand wholly that it is one elephant, after all !
To condemn mutually to death now and to hell later,
Or live in peace now and then in heaven better.
Can we not, all of us, live in love - forgiving and fraternal
In the cool shade of The One Tree
Whose every ‘Bush’ is ‘Laden’ with love unconditional ?
Oct 2001 - Hans Dholakia