Now We Will Say “ Happy New Year”
We are always on the right side of history
like a civilized traffic that waits for the green
signal and moves smugly while pedestrians
around central stations of Cairo and Nairobi
and tourists at Trafalgar feed pigeons of many
creeds without any tiff in language, neither
in shaking hands skins flake but after a smile
a thought passes why we have lived so long
under these beaming lighthouses of empires
there is a transgression poetic in intent which
cares to plunder our souls muffled under snows
herding factories of passions and meager labor
marveling fireworks at Sydney Harbor Bridge, the
starved dogs of Mumbai snarl at passing vehicles
where Gothic cathedrals chime colonial bells
even a gleeful atheist strikes a sacred chord after
watching an award winning photography of Syrian
children bombed and borderless carrying ghastly
bowls of food— a historian remains detached.
by Rizwan Akhtar