I Stood My Ground Poem by Bernedita Rosinha Pinto

And everywhere I stood my ground
and spoke my words of courage and despair;
when war just spiked and bombs just exploded
I yelled to stop the fight and revive the peace urgently
as lives were more precious than vengeance and debris.

When an air crash or an earthquake was announced
I felt the pain, I felt the sufferings
of those who struggled to win back
their steadiness and peace.

Even as I saw the refugees fleeing Syria
my own heart cried like that of a child
as I had worked with Syrians in schools
and I knew their gentleness
had such an admirable quantum of politeness.

Sometimes I felt so appalled that people who
deserved no sufferings, no pain, no death
had to confront more than they could take.
as those families who lost their sons and daughters
in catastrophes, wars and accidents
never could ever succeed in reviving back
their frame work of life and happiness.

If only could either man or fate or God Himself
curtail those tears that death and discrimination creates
the world would have been a simpler place
as no blacks would have got shot or killed for color
as no women would have got raped for her vulnerability
as no wars would have taken place for hatred and hostility
and no people would have kept running as refugees
when in their own country they have so much of bliss.

And yet at every foothill, that I saw sufferings
I wrote my feelings and climbed up a mountain
and whispered to the world - stop the inhumanity
stop and help, stop and be courteous to mankind
for peace can be retrieved any day. any how
but life one lost is forever lost.