Groundlings

by Sunil Sharma / March 27th, 2016

We are still here!
Your bulldozers flattened the shanties
Threw away our meagre belongings in the drive
Against the dispossessed, sparing the rich.
We are back!
There is no roof
No walls here.
Like seeds, we grow everywhere.
Cops will come and shoo us away
But again, night, we will return and reclaim
The dusty ground—because we are the groundlings!
Our homes do not add to pollution, as do their gadgets.
Just a pale bulb and a common tap, no wastage!
Hard work and sound sleep—envy of others!
Why do you keep on driving us outwards?
We can sleep under the stars, under a welcoming tree.
Our life is a public spectacle watched by the motorists, gleefully.
After 68 years, we remain perpetual wanderers, homeless, in our own country!
But we no longer care, because we are not going to get justice.
We—the children of the earth and sky
A lean and muscular tribe
We will survive this long demolition drive and other violent nights
Of the sick metro!

Sunil Sharma is Toronto-based senior academic, critic, literary editor and author with 23 published books: Seven collections of poetry; four of short fiction; one novel; a critical study of the novel, and, nine joint anthologies on prose, poetry and criticism, and, one joint poetry collection. He is a recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ inaugural Poet of the Year award---2012. His poems were published in the prestigious UN project: Happiness: The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry, in the year 2015. Sunil edits the English section of the monthly bilingual journal Setu published from Pittsburgh, USA. For more details, please visit here Read other articles by Sunil, or visit Sunil's website.

This article was posted on Sunday, March 27th, 2016 at 8:03am and is filed under Poetry.