A Lament

No, I cannot love you

I cannot be your friend

You killed my sons and daughters

Destroyed my home

I now live in desperate squalor

No, I cannot love you

I cannot be your friend.

I will fear you

Fear your awesome power

Your faceless, missiles and bombs

That came screaming across the sky

Like fire from hell

No, I cannot love you

I cannot be your friend.

I will fear you, I have feared before

I have feared the rich, the powerful

Yoke of the despotic rulers

Through the centuries

I know fear.

If you came to teach a lesson of love

Of friendship, that cannot happen.

But, I have learned to dread your awesome power

If you came for that black slime to run your machines,

Take it; it is not mine; it never was.

F… you! Please sir

Thank you for loaf of bread

For destroying my home

For slaughtering my children

For terrorizing me for terror of others

No, I cannot love you

I can never be your friend.

Harbhajan Sandhu

Author of “Wayward Brahmin: Tale of Lust, Philosophy,

Space-Time And A Man’s Search For Meaning.”