Kings have built temples
Pharaohs pyramids
Politicians have their statues
Ozymandias, too
And the Ambanis have their Antilia
All this to proclaim
To the future:
I was here.
For most of us however
Our tryst with posterity
Is through our children
And yet we countenance
The suffering of so many children.
War, hunger, malnutrition
Exams, competition, insecurity
Gratuitous violence, browbeating, repression.
Each child that suffers
Is a blight on
Our collective future.
This poem first appeared on Sunder and Sonati’s blog, Anhad Ka Baaja. Read the original here.
Sunder and Sonati have been living and growing a forest on a small piece of land in Thekambattu in rural Tamil Nadu for the last 20 years. You can read their blogs here and here.
Featured image: Rene Bernal/Unsplash