Independence Day

by Josh Pampam

We have lost those first days

That had adorned themselves in thorns

The swamp-tender thickets rising,

like the cup of custard

At the mouth of a hot kettle

To chancel on faiths,

We never could understand.

We have lost all those stories,

Of bloodstains on our eyes,

Of tears trekking naked on our faces

When youths and fathers were taken

across the border

By the colonizers who stole our joy.

We have lost track of the pains

That painted our brains with darkness,

When the sky was short of stars;

Fixed foghorns on our foreheads,

On wild-winter days of the wasted years.

Of many prayers that arose from heavy hearts,

Like armies of flame from a rubber burning

Spread, throughout the heated atmosphere,

To cloud our descendants to face a different fate.

We have lost those first days.

To today as we trudge the street

With our feet feasting on the faceless

Fear fixed to the fatigue floor of our flaws.

With our shoulders shoulder like the wide wings

Of a spirited butterfly in an air of breakthrough,

With our tongues tong by the tearing songs

Of a soothing euphonious tune.

We have lost all those stories today:

Dried was the crimson ocean in our nation,

That reeks only of memories of heroes,

And heroines who zeroed in on our betterment —

By being the rays of the sun,

And this we get in return:

We have lost track of the pains

Of the affliction from the hands of the scavengers

Thanks to the avengers who salvaged our land

From the barbarians, the dictators who posed

To wipe off the histories of our ancestors;

The vultures who preyed on our culture,

stole our ancient sculpture and caused

Amidst us, an eruption.

Of many prayers, we prayed and still praying

Our country will stand many decades to come.

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