AT THE JUNCTION OF MANY ROADS

At the junction

Where many roads intersect

There remained a moment of stillness

We thought  we were all going

On the straight road

And that the others who crowded

Were missing the point

And going in the opposite way

There was hustling, heckling and furrowing

"You are the one to be corrected

Led to the right path!"

The onward march was possible

Only by derailing the other

Pushing someone out

Bumping into, trodding on someone’s feet

Waiting for the equal and opposite heaving,

Hustling, wrestling, trampling, derailing

Of  oneself

Seldom remembering that deriding the other

Was a way of no win

Because just as the crowd pushes and pulls

Someone may go under

Someone near and dear, you, or the other

Who is also somebody’s  near and dear

If you burn down schools, or the pay is insufficient,

Or do not allow someone to walk the streets

The paddy  fields will lie uncultivated

Tall grass will grow in them.

It is no use fledgling your muscles

Or pushing with bare bones or claws

Because at the junction

Ousting somebody

Trapping, incarcerating  the other

A junction of bodies in flux

Of minds in turmoil

To evict, dismember

To get there, to get there

Beyond their reach

Some safe place.

But then there ain’t no

Safe place, Buddy!

There ain’t no safe place

We gonna go together to this hell down there

All of us gonna work to make

The hell  a li’l  better,

This paunch that pulls against my tummy

I gonna  git it in a tight hold

We gonna kiss while all this goes on

We gonna make this hustlers shamed

They gotta know we sons of same god

They gotta stop pushin’ each other out

They gotta stop the war now

Weapons can only make us weep an’ bleed

We need to breed a new race

We need to know each other better

Fratricide, matricide, patricide, suicide or homicide

None of ‘em no good for nobody

Some time a road branches off somewhere

We go different ways

On this here globe

We meet again someday, sister

We no bump anybody off

We no tear each other’s skin

We keep lovin’, lovin’  all the time

Those who wanna rule turn unruly by the day

We no need no ruler anymore

We need be friends

We need faith in each other

But like it or not, the other ain’t the same anywhere

So we need faith in that other god

That cures and queers the pitch for us

Because love is the way 

And it could lead nowhere else

But to love

We need to take it

This way that leads only to itself.