Ride Across The River

A childhood thrown into misery,
Hands festooned with pickaxe instead of pen
As the child glanced at his tainted palm
Whose lines pointed towards a dying future,
His eyes inured to the doom that fate wrote
Could only see the sun through the river that quenched his thirst.
Sun woke up with a yawn while the child got ready for his work
His shoulders bruised with the weight of pickaxe,
Everyday he marched towards the field that beared his bread,
He dug his own grave to bury his conscience,
For hunger knew only satiation and not segregation.
One day he glanced at a catamaran that embarked on its journey,
Curiosity engulfed in his mind as he longed for a
Ride across the river
That took him to the other side.

A foundation laid during childhood
As the palettes filled with a melange to be painted on canvas
The brush moved rhythmically with strokes on nature
He enjoyed the shining sun,
He danced to the driving rain,
His thoughts never had a tinge of pain,
Never did he run towards the river to quench his thirst,
No empty space was filled against his wishes by his father,
The balance in his thoughts shaping up,
Bearing a weight that only a child could carry.
Everyday he came to the levee for his catch
Bait lowered in search of its prey,
A Launch began on its trip as Tim wondered if the
Ride across the river
Revealed the worlds on the other side.

Tim’s wish was again met
Father and son seated on a canoe,
They rowed on and on towards the next bank
The serenity was coupled with the beauty
Nature was teaching valuable lessons to its student,
The boy felt the flow of water as they moved ahead,
Heaven seemed a less worthy place to this feeling
But we are devoid of freezing these moments longer.
The bank was getting closer
His limbs registered a sense of excitement,
His heart, a rush of blood.
The boy leaped from the canoe to look around
It was a parallel world with opposite shades but the
Ride across the river
Unearthed nature’s treasures on the other side.

Color called green must have been created here
Tim’s foot landed on a six-inch ditch
Extracting a sudden outbreak of tears from his face.
“Father!Father!“ he squealed and a massage countered his pain.
The pickaxe fell on the boy’s foot
He screamed sending shivers of his death around
Whom could he call to stop his pain,
His blood quenched the thirst of the sown seeds
Hell seemed a better place to be than this feeling
God was gracious enough in freezing these moments.
The duo rushed towards the boy
“Can you feel his pain?” father asked
Tim’s cheeks welled up with tears not for him but for boy as the
Ride across the river
Dawned the dreadly other side.

A batallion of children deprived of future
Melted heart of the father who scripted a change in their fate.
The duo returned to their homeland.
An army of canoes with many fathers flagged off from the bank,
Tim’s strokes for the first time pictured agony as
As children for the first time sensed what the color red meant,
The canoes landed like cannons on enemy’s camp
Landlord was up for his battle
But the strength of one was always meek before many.
A fierce war of words through which the little slaves were freed
The canoes had children with their new fathers,
A new foundation was laid
The lines on their palms were pristine shredding their past gory as
Ride across the river
Brought new friends to the other side.