Whispered Anthems

Every evening,
he returns home from the mines
and diligently scrubs the dust and soot from his body.
His wife and three daughters
light up the one-bedroom house and prepare warm supper.

On certain days, 
after the noise of the returning birds is quietened,
he scrubs harder and deeper,
as if he’s trying to clean the murk off his soul.
On such bleak evenings,
he closes the bedroom door,
kneels before the altar,
and cries silently
asking for forgiveness.
Forgiveness for the horrors perpetrated
and horrors committed
in the name of a revolution:
Hate speeches, hate literature, hollow ideals, 
hunger strikes, kidnappings, assassinations, bombings...

After decades of struggles and sacrifices,
they won their freedom
from their weary oppressors.
When the red and black flag was hoisted
against the orange sky,
they fervently saluted
the fluttering piece of blood-soaked cloth
They proudly claimed their land,
their identity, and their glory.
They elected articulate leaders
to take their story forward,
to render a deeper meaning 
to their dreams and their narrative.

Eighteen years have passed,
but nothing has changed.
The players were replaced, 
lines have blurred
and time has moved backwards.
It’s oppression at a different level,
it’s evil of a different kind,
it’s a vacuum that’s inexplicable
and palpable.

Sometimes, at the altar, 
he stares mindlessly at the calluses on his hands,
- just as he would stare
at the tainted red and black flag
fluttering against a heavy gray sky
on Independence Day.
He thinks
of the herds of impressionable youth
led down the ravenous path
like caged canaries in the pits.  
He thinks
of his dead son. 
The pain is deeper than ever before,  
a pain that chokes the heart
and consumes the soul.

Like the thousands
who fought relentlessly for the bloody revolution,
he asks himself the same question repeatedly:
‘Is this collapse
a reflection on the kind of weaklings 
we are on the inside?'