Happy Birthday, India!

An ancient civilization many millennia old
Inside a young nation just finding its feet
A people divided a myriad ways
Who cheer in one voice for the Indian team

Beautiful temples illuminated by sublime faith
Where timeless tales are carved on ageless stones
Inside crowded cities with squalid slums
Where struggling people step on each others toes

Looted, conquered, enslaved, colonized
Yet her bosom holds the secret to liberation
Happy 75th to the gentle giant
To a sacred land, to a modern nation

August 15th, 2022

India celebrates 75 years of independence!

Progress

From living with kin in crowded villages
To nuclear families in sprawling homes
From growing food being our life’s purpose
To being able to summon it from our phones

From living as children of the forests
To clearing them for our needs
To planting them back again grudgingly
To accumulate some carbon credits

From looking up reverentially at the heavens
To taking a joy ride to the skies
Of the progress we have made over the years
I am incredibly proud (or am I?)

April 24th, 2022