He Belongs. Do You? (The Testimony) Poem by Tony Cemaluk

He fought cold wars,
Uncountable.
Academic — with books.
Village and kindred, family and fire — with patience, wisdom, smile and silence.

Diokpala by fate, as an infant,
A child made elder,
A boy handed a staff —
Invisible, tall and weighty, yet he carried.

They thought he would fall.
He did not fall.
He stood.

Through wars, he gathered knowledge,
Many things entered him.
Through grace, he gathered stamina,
And decorated knowledge with means.

Now in the league of who is who,
From a boy with burden,
To a man with bulldozer for burdens.

He is not one.
He is many who survived in one.

He belongs to
One In The Plural.