Come Back Haikhohat Samte

The bamboo shoots were sprouting
Oh! But the July moon died
In the cloud of gun smoke
The rifles getting readied to bang more
To tear the innocence apart
And there you came alone
Passing through different colors of their flags
Passing from Burma border into India
To find the remnants of your home
Where once you collected firewood

Now there you are collecting memories
To remember you had a home
With cattle and poultry
To listen to your evening songs
Now you breathe gun powder
And fumes from the ashes of your burnt house
Now a bullet hit your spine
Leaving you paralyzed on the hospital bed.

Oh! The day I heard about you, Haikhohat Samte
They told me you died three years back
But I’m not a newspaper to forget you and your story
Let me remember you whole of my life
Let me smell the stink till I see
Their bullets melting in your father’s tears.
And let this poem be a bullet to rip this rotten land apart.

Come back! Haikhohat Samte
Where is the plastic pipe that fitted to your urinary tract
Let’s fit it to this land
Stream them away like larva from a volcano
Where is the blanket that covers you
And the foul smell of your half dead body?
Let’s cover this land with the blanket
And upon it we will grow a new land for you