Kharavela Returns Poem by Bishnupada Sethi

I crossed two thousand years to come home.
The palace is dust.
Only my cave endures,
and the words I cut into its stone.

The Mahanadi has widened into sea.
Where my war-elephants once thundered,
a city of glass and light now drifts
on stilts of steel.
No horses. No bronze swords.
No drums of hide.

People speak in a tongue
still unborn when I ruled.
Their voices are soft and subtle.
They smile at me
the way children do at a king
in an old picture-book.

They drink from the canals I got dug.
No one remembers the screams that paid for it.
In schoolrooms they pronounce my name correctly,
then rush out to fly kites that need no string.

I asked, "Do you still require a king? "
They laughed like river-water over pebbles:
"We have water, rice, and peace.
What more could a king give us? "

I unclasped the crown of gold and jewels,
set it deep inside the cave
beside the rusted spearheads
and broken victory drums.
The kingdom, grown wiser than its conqueror,
carried on without me.

Jai Jagannātha.
Kaliṅga has won its greatest war
by forgetting how to wage one.