Monuments

Monuments

Build on you men, build on!

Build that which may stand tall and strong through quake and flood
Build that which may make you forget the price of your blood
Build that which may inspire a generation of scornful scions
Build that which may inspire a sacrifice of a thousand toothless lions

Build a monument - Oh men of misery!
Build with your hands and with your trickery
Build till your backs fork out of you
Build for you know what is true

Call in your experts and engineering technicians
Call in your lenders and your men of due diligence
Call in the number crunchers and the book keepers
Call in the three marketeers and let them seek the seekers

Build on you men, build a monument for me!

A monument where the river rerouted
A monument where the trees uprooted
A monument where the land was tough
A monument where the sea was rough

Is it not hope, that you cherished forever?
Is it not beautiful, the fruit of sweet labour?
Is it not love, all your prayers and cries?
Is it not just, that one small sacrifice?

A monument to your fists with hammers and sickles
A monument to your pens and swords and shields and fickles
A monument to the greed where you headfirst delve
A monument to the apathy of a father of twelve

Build on you men, build that someone may build one for thee!

-x-x-x-

© Parched For Rain

A Boatman's Monologue

A Boatman's Monologue

I could have survived without the bridge. Like my fathers did for all those years. A man, after all, does not need bridges to survive. A man has to be self-sufficient. One does not need to go to the other side of the river for it. What new do they have there? The men there are the same. The villages are the same. It's the same country everywhere, is it not?!

And if anyone did want to cross over, they could use a boat. Like we friends had done when we were young. There was no bridge then. My father slapped me when I returned. He gave me no dinner too.

"Young boys have no business crossing the river; going to the other side. No business at all to leave their mothers worried.", he had scolded.

But then, that was no good reason to build a bridge, was it? Some people high up in those city offices wanted it built. They said that bridges connected people, brought in prosperity and growth. How? No one told us how.

These people are thieves, I tell you. Stealing a part of our livelihood this way! This fishing business does not earn a lot. Sure, it fills our stomach -  you should stop fishing if you can't catch that much and start begging - but what about the rest?! We have our house to mend, our women need their new clothes and stuff, our children have to go to school ... I too have a life now, don't I?

A truck from fisheries comes here every Tuesday and Saturday. Yes, from over the other side. We save a bit of it. But then I've got this sorry excuse of a boat. Needs mending every season.

Back in the days before the bridge, any person worthy of being called a man in these parts could make a decent living ferrying people across. Simple money for simple people. And fresh fish to go with it. Nothing much of it these days.

Don't be mistaken. I don't say anything bad of the river. She's been good to us. She's like my mother you know! Taken care of me and my people. Took care of my fathers too. But she's grown old now. Streaks of black and foam show up sometimes in the summers. Found some dead fish too. God knows what they do to her up in the city.

And she gets angry too. She flooded over two rains ago. Her water entered our houses and fields. Bad year it was. Lost two kids in the village. The third was saved by the hospital people. He was in bad shape by the time we got there. It was in the next village. Over the bridge, you know. The bridge saved him. You cant cross a flooded river, now can you?!

It's a tough life you know in these parts. Up in the river all day looking for fish. I don't even come home for lunch these days. I have it in the boat. Fix it to one of the bridge pillars under the shadow, eat, take a quick nap and then back to work.

Do stay here tonight if you boys have no rush. I will take you tomorrow on the other side on my boat. Just like the old days. I'll take you boys for free! Won't charge a paisa ... Promise!

-x-x-x-

© Parched For Rain

Train Through A Tunnel

Train Through A Tunnel

Laid back, I sit by the open window
Resting my elbow on the frame
As the train rushes along, the fields
And rivers and trees, none ever the same

The subtleties of indifferent change
Brought of a steady foreign influencing
I sit through and watch it unfold
Over drifting pungent wafts of seasoning

The world, in essence, passes by
And is faster still the passing of day
The sun, exhausted on its own
Pulls out to its pale red parking bay

It's dark all of a sudden, a rushing dark
Not the sun, it still has a while to go
It's an ominous dark, a tunnel of smoke
For the light I then hold, inching slow

The subtleties of change, not indifferent
The now inward self influencing
I can no longer sit and watch unfold
Over the pungent wafts of self burning

The smoke thickens as old people join
The clouds left behind, for me to grow
The more the merrier, or contrary
For the light I then hold, inching slow

It's light, and sudden stops the smoke
The sun out west efforts on in my frame
As the train rushes along, the fields
And river and trees, none ever the same

-x-x-x-

© Parched For Rain