Who's A Friend, Who's A Foe, Don't Know! Poem by Nikhat Bano

In the dust he was lying, unarmed, unescorted,
upon his head my gun was pointed;
I was eager to register my name among patriots,
his body throbbed seeing me in a fight mode.

In an utter agony he made his head rise,
his mystic glance pierced through my eyes;
Those feeble hands made gestures to pause,
finally, my demur stopped my zeal's flows.

Eager to know what he had to say
in his last lag; What did he wish to convey?
His frail figure and blood smeared face,
were ready to deface my myth and to efface.

The half dead entity was kicked by my boot,
hatred had blackened my heart by soot;
What's that that he wishes to say at this stage,
seeing his end, I thanked god I wasn't in his place.

My curiosity for him, made me bend a little,
to hear his crumbling bones unduly brittle;
"What will I lose if I listen to him once" I retorted.
"It's him, who's in a sinking boat, not I." Again, I retorted.

With pain he said, "Why do you wish to kill me, Pal? "
"Ask yourself, putting your hands on your heart;
Do you really know the reason behind your action? "
"Brother, surely you don't know any sane reason."

"In your war room if I'm marked as an antagonist,
in my war room, even you're not a protagonist."
"I don't know why I'm being killed." He chuckled.
On his blood smeared face his pearly teeth sparkled.

Just then a gun shot was heard, echoed in the air,
a soul was seen drifting off leaving earthen sphere;
In that bleak battlefield a deafening silence prevailed then,
a clay toy was seen getting mixed with the soil, lying all broken.

Turning my back, I tried to walk on my staggering feet,
carrying along a question - how to define a victory and a defeat?
A puzzle posed by a dead soldier will always haunt me,
and ask me why I'm into this war, why on a killing spree?

Is this rationale enough that he belonged to an enemy camp?
But I have heard we're a supreme creation, not a tramp.
In this war torn era, neither the killer knows, why's he killing,
nor the dying knows why is he being killed?

Copyright © April 2019 DrNikhat Bano All rights reserved