How Safe? ? Poem by Sathya Narayana

How safe is this country, how safe is that country;
this block, that lane, this nook and that corner...how safe?

How sure are you coming from your work place alone?
Is your Lugar secure with rounds enough to fire?
How many bullets can you let off...one, two, three...four! ?
Nervous, you look around! Ah Man is just thin-skinned!

You hear gun fire Next Street! A bomb has blown few miles
away in the outskirts of your city, beloved.
Land-mines elsewhere are dampening the sandy beds
of bank's of your Holy rivers with human blood!

You look with suspicion at your neighbor's lengthy beard
and step back with fear on finding an unattended
suitcase in the bus stop...
You strongly wish to live! How long? How safe? How well?
Really don't know; nor think of the ominous journey ahead
on piles of corpses, through the light of burning pyres!

You gaze afar, with hope, you see near, with fear...
the terminus unclear; a briskly adjusted
binocular vision indeed, your fate in front,
half clear, half blur; a hazy future with no hope!

So much, so known, I'm sure you smile at your dead end
that comes, abrupt, at some back street's dim, cruelest bend!