A Change For The Better

I’m thankful that I can walk up and down,

Every other day, and know the world is not an impoverished place.

Although I know that millions go hungry in pockets,

I am not confronted by the stark vulgarity of it- I don’t grimace.

My words do not resonate in a Colosseum,

Where I may be beheaded on account of political inaccuracy!

We aren’t stranded in a once-bombed Cathedral, or Concentration camp,

Where every next breath feels like ecstasy.

But I don’t know what it really means to be thankful-

To canter, while your heart is trotting,

To paint from an imagination clouded by the gore of war,

To be headlong, knee-deep in violence- but express the music of freedom in a jotting.

Have I seen the change - the resurgence,

Have I come to learn its true meaning?

Have I been the merger of plight and placidity,

Have I toiled every time my heart gave that wavering beat?

I have not- not as yet;

That ripple of an aberration has not yet abounded.

Have I brought about a revolutionising change?

Have I left my people astounded?

But then, I have changed - moulded myself time and again

Played to the beckoning need

Stalled at shores that slapped water against my feet,

Passed by cacophony with disdain.

Bored a trench through the Shaw-shank of my wants,

Where a conscientious soldier is oft dispatched.

To record at length the throbs and the throngs,

That enamor or ripple against me.

This elaborate report gives me bandwidth to respond,

To the world as I would like it to take to me,

When I dig deep, the power to change empowers me,

The power to change all within me…

Radiating, ripple-fashion, beyond…

Through selfless intention, innocent curiosity.

To change the world is no mammoth task,

As all changes emanate from within us,

Bright as the fire, true as a quest,

And contagious as a yawn.