The nameless

"You of artless origins,
are whittled off apes;
black like coal, dirty
like pigs and dull like the night.
 You are the least desirable;
you have no names.
Ayahs, Chowkidars--
you will be called.
The Iron earrings, stone necklaces,
will show you where you belong--
by an outhouse near palaces of divine men.
Your bare chest will suffer the sun; your hands
belong to the shovel;
Your words will be menses,
your breath  will reek rank;
and your food will be putrid flesh.
Immutable facts as they are,
my conscience will be clean.
However much you change it,
the world will be as it is.
So, why blame me?"

Calling.

And the voice grew louder-
“blessed are those who have seen the prophet”.
I blinked my eyes and there I was,
on the rut away from the daily mill.
Of stones, pricks and foreboding signs.

There, I met the spinster.
As is her wont, she smelled of cant; a deluded mind.
“Your forebears know better”, she warned.
I walked on.

Then came the old man- the simpleton fool.
Fetid with bigotry and dogma,
he regaled me the story of the scab, who lost it all.
I walked on.

At the curb was the fearsome priest.
A spear, in his hands;
impaled on it, the heads of dykes and heathens.
“Your kind!”, he sneered.
“Goodness forbids you turn the corner”, he put wise
I am struck. I look back.

The voice came back, louder-
“False dreads they! “.
I walked on; took the curve.
There he was. The Prophet. The Soul Rebel.
Waiting for the Zion train.

Determinatioin

He is never gray or old,
Resolute like a warrior's soul,
Often a failure by his own flaws,
But burns red to his bungles.

Too green to know his luck,
"Come what may”, he says
And goes at it again.

No more blue the second time,
He tries the same a third time,
 third time's a charm and,
Fate crumbles before his dogged mind,
He is the acquired virtue- determination