Walls

Walls crop up, from time to time

Whenever a brash leader of a nation

Trumpets flawed false notion,

Or a zealot sows the seeds of hatred.

Misguided, blind-folded,

Fearing your very own shadows,

You build them all around you.

Callous, before you realize your fallacy

You are a prisoner of your own phobias.

Heeding to the magic pied-piper

You build them around your nation,

You build them across the rivers

That flow in, to guard your riches;

You build them to stifle the inlets

And block those wearing dreams on their sleeves.

Heading into a downward spiral of hatred

You tread a path of no return.

For a while, the stillborn dreams

A pileup in a heap around the borders;

But soon – the river meanders around the walls

Seeking new deltas to enrich;

Undeterred, the dreams blossom, flourish again

Fostered in the faraway, newer, fertile lands.

The prisoner that you are, You look around

In the middle of the smog-filled barren lands;

Once a river, the empty canyon now

Stares at the towering walls;

Once a sprawling metropolis

Resigns to its fate, a necropolis.

Decades from now, A braveheart

May bring the walls crumbling down,

But the walls built in the heart

Leave you isolated for centuries more;

Walls have no favorite sides,

Walls will never be one-way roads;

The wall that you built around you

Is nothing but your own tomb!