Awake Or Fall Poem by Prabir Gayen

‎ Awake or Fall
‎
‎ Prabir Kumar Gayen
‎
‎Awake Before the Ash Falls
‎You earn, you store, you contend with your neighbour,
‎you hoard tomorrow as though it were immortal.
‎You boast of talent,
‎inflate the chest with borrowed grandeur,
‎live as a giant
‎upon a fragile spine of breath.
‎You raise mansions of stone and glass,
‎cars that shine like armored desires,
‎sleep one night in costly hotels
‎to feel successful for a moment.
‎You roam as officer, administrator, merchant of power,
‎crowned by ego,
‎unquestioned by time.
‎You live like a king,
‎stacking assets for unborn names,
‎yet have you looked once
‎at the ledger of history?
‎Where are the palaces of Prithviraj?
‎Where echoes the throne of Shivaji?
‎Where rest the empires shaped by centuries of will?
‎Even kings who turned to compassion,
‎even rulers who renounced violence,
‎where are their generations now?
‎Stone dissolved into dust.
‎Gold scattered into anonymity.
‎Lineages thinned into footnotes.
‎Did you ask why?
‎What happened to the great houses
‎of North and South,
‎of Bengal and the Deccan,
‎when ruthless ideologies crossed borders
‎not with dialogue,
‎but with hunger for blood and possession?
‎What happened to their wealth,
‎their temples,
‎their learning,
‎their heirs?
‎Have you learned anything
‎from the naked movement of time?
‎Have you ever examined
‎the philosophy that sanctifies destruction,
‎that baptizes murder as virtue,
‎that calls plunder a sacred duty?
‎Or are you too busy
‎quarrelling with the neighbour
‎who is part of your own breath,
‎your first wall of protection,
‎your unseen ally?
‎You fight the mirror
‎while the storm studies your house.
‎Do you know
‎that a seeker of ancient wisdom
‎is a rare pulse in creation,
‎that such consciousness diminishes daily
‎not by chance
‎but by design?
‎Did you ever consider
‎that you carry an inheritance older than memory,
‎a current of knowledge
‎that once taught the world
‎to think, to ask, to awaken?
‎What have you done
‎to protect that inheritance
‎for your children?
‎Those who walk the paths of non-violence,
‎whether named Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain,
‎or any faith rooted in conscience,
‎are bound by the same vulnerability,
‎targeted by the same hunger
‎that despises restraint and mercy.
‎What have you done
‎beyond personal success,
‎beyond family comfort,
‎beyond polishing private lives?
‎The air grows heavier.
‎The silence thickens.
‎Footsteps move closer,
‎not in myth,
‎but in pattern.
‎Everything can be taken.
‎Home, history, breath.
‎Brutality needs no justification
‎when ideology absolves it.
‎Love alone will not shield you
‎if love refuses courage.
‎Meditation alone will not save you
‎if awareness avoids action.
‎Compassion without clarity
‎becomes an offering to destruction.
‎Awake.
‎Arise.
‎Unite with those
‎who honour life.
‎Do not divide into names and sects
‎while the threat is singular.
‎Synthesize wisdom.
‎Stand together in discernment.
‎Know this deeply:
‎the enemy is not many,
‎the danger is one.
‎And one, unchecked,
‎is enough
‎to erase humanity.
‎Choose unity over ego.
‎Preparation over denial.
‎Wisdom over sleep.
‎Wake.
‎And see.
‎@Prabir Gayen
‎04/01/2026/5: 51 PM.
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