पोएम

Rising Grace

A light
A force
A faith
Shaped the destiny of unborn children of slaves
It fought to its last
Restlessly

Political activist
Once confused to take up the path of religion
In solitude
Where his friend lived in
There with twenty thousand ghosts
Alive …

He was acknowledged by almost none
At the very dawn of his struggle
A desire he had to give birth to mankind
To cut apes from human
Aha! Respected apes!
Educated ones!
Intellectuals!
Who possessed men
As objects
Children, black ones
Taken like animals in ships
To serve for ‘big’ countries
With their sweats turned into blood
Women raped for pleasure
Man in chains…
As rewards, beaten to deaths
With no laws on their side

Slaves, we all are, for sure
Of our desires
Of our ambitions
Of our own destiny …

But He gave the world back
Its faith on humanity
On eternal values of all being one
He fought
With His passion
Without violence
In the House of Commons

To make us all
Blacks, whites,
Of any religion
Realize our buried voices
Shouldered for so long
No hopes of freedom which remained our fate

And one day of enlightment
For the world
And to humanity
To condemn
And to be ashamed of
All forces
In the favour of slavery

He was none less than an avatar
A man history might not remember
Yet, his power to be felt
In any form, at any time, in any country

An amazing grace,
William Wilberforce
A living history of mankind!

Vinaye
12-12-2007
Reflections on ‘Amazing Grace’