There is bitter cold

At the borders of the city

Of indifference.

Wizened women and men

And children below their teens

Lie the frozen nights

On bare tarmac,

Surviving by the fire in their hearts,

And the justice of their cause.

A glow of truth from their being

Warms the air and shames the

Winter of crude impertinence,

Even as their human bodies may

Succumb to the December hell.

Carrying the nursing warmth

Of the soil in their bones,

India’s farmers outface the urban

Cold and show how the real freeze

Lies in the swollen skull of authority

Whose hollow cruelty may be stern

Without human content, but whose

Pride of office screams for pity.

This is truly a new beauty born

That gathers histories

Of courage and faith

In the sounding of the people’s horn

That may never be stilled

Either by Nature’s extremes

Or the flimsy robes worn

By Pharaohs of the day.

Yet again, the  ploughshare shows the way.

---