He refused to yield,
and the stars were burning hot.
Night was foggy, and the moon was hiding.
His white, shriveled hands
held the center of gravity.
Obsessively he anchored himself
in the muddled egos and bleeding knives.

Somebody was shouting that the legend
was a big fake.
The pardon will not work. Death was
still sleeping. They were searching
the saboteur when the sun went down.
Winds were in coma.
The ink rolled back from the warrant.

Two faces of pain, right and wrong,
fear and agony, all were him.
He had nothing to hide, nothing to declare.
Walked away in the high tide
in raining abuses, in hurting slogans,
and found his past, buried deep
in the ravines, where only the echo comes back.

Satish Verma