The Outcast’s Indictment

What sin lies in the beating of a heart,
That flight from fury is proclaimed a vice?
We fled the smoke of our ancestral hearths,
To find the world became a wall of ice.
Is mercy treason in the eyes of state?
Must weary pilgrims wear the chains of blame?
We knocked upon the heavy gates of fate,
And for our sorrow, received a criminal's name.

To beg for bread is deemed a thief's design,
To seek a shelter, an invading stride.
The very air we breathe is called a crime,
Though pulled by nature, not by willful pride.
No crown we seek, nor gold from out your chest,
Only the quiet of a shore at peace;
Yet innocence is shackled and oppressed,
And wandering grief is granted no surcease.

Oh, heavy irony that rules the age!
When virtue bleeds and pity is confined,
The boundless earth is made a bitter cage,
And law is drawn to strike the helpless blind.
We bear no daggers, yet you fear our plight—
Condemned to wander in perpetual night.

©️ Mohammed Arshad Amin