As each year passes by, we sincerely pray for humanity not to fall prey to the future pain of natural and man-made calamities

Months and years go by
Laughter and tears
Hopes and fears
Greet and bid goodbye

Each year we sincerely pray:
To future pain we fall not prey

Would our leaders learn-
To resolve our resentment yearn?
The common man is common no more
More dangerous than war is his furor (1)

Would sufferings
In Syria suspend
Would the rape
Of Rohingya rescind (2)

When would tears
of Muzaffar-town dry (3)
When would drones end
Their ferocious-fly (4)

Would Haiyan and Phalin
Strike us again (5)
And curse us with
The extravaganza of pain

Who like Mandela
will give us skin-deep dreams?
Who like Chavez
Will kindle to fight enemies?

Who will again reveal
Tales of spy and pry?
Truth is hidden in the PRISM
Of Intelligent Lies (6)

Questions of the Mind
Are prayers of the Heart
Faith, a child of the future
And Thought, of the Past

Dec 31 2013. Edit May 2021

1 The victory of Aam Aadmi in Delhi elections
2 The persecution of the Rohingya community in Myanmar
3 Victims of the communal riots in the North Indian town
4 American military’s unmanned flight attacks in which several civilians die
5 Natural disasters which killed thousands in India & Philippines
6 PRISM is the US government’s electronic surveillance of global communication since 2007 and an unprecedented breach of human privacy