Yesterday, Someone Set Fire To The Old Sky Poem by rathod vaishakh

Sparkling, all his children died,
slowly scattered on earth as ash
Yesterday, someone set fire to the old sky

The 9 year old boot polish boy
can not sleep under your shadow
He slaves all day
and yet you never served
the empty plate of his stomach
You sharpen the fire in the stove everyday
and the plate heats up
You should not have ignored
his hunger.

Look at those adivasis
who preserve your vast nature
How scared
How subdued
Withered
they look
A wolf
Slowly drives them along
Like raw meat
You should not have neglected
The sharp edges of their arrows
Their calls and cries
The grains of the forest’s ashes

Your gift of barren land
they watered with their sweat
growing feasts for the world

Their son stands
with hands outstretched before a landlord
when he should have been the real prince

Black crows
licking the soft river of the body
spilling through torn clothes
dividing turn after turn their loot

That is their daughter
who should have been the real princess

And they lie
dead in the middle of he harvest
in their own field

You should not have neglected
the slavery of these farmers

Last night
I met them all




(1.Tribal people)


vaishakh rathod