Whirlwind
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 19th 2013
Brother down. My brother down.
Could it be, could it possibly be
That guilt gnaws at his spine?
He sits there, crouched
In an anonymous room
Or backyard,
The incubus of death
Possibly trapped to his chest,
Making breath
Difficult, and making sobs
Harden into shrapnel.
He awaits the end,
Undecided about dying.
It’s clear he wishes
To leave on his own terms.
The fog comes and goes.
Mist along the alleyways
Of a labyrinthine mind.
Angelic face, dark eyes
Innocent and disarming,
Armed with what could
Only be a death-wish.
How can hatred catch such
A beautiful-seeming young man?
What does he think,
Crouched there, seeing
The faces of the innocents
Slain by the bombs that
His brother and he placed
In their bid for … what?
Who caught him when he
Grew up, far from parents,
Vulnerable to hateful words,
Prey to delusions of matyrdom
(For what else could it be,
But his need for such a terrible end?)
Did his life lack purpose?
Did his honor embrace darkness?
Did his heart get clutched
By loneliness and despair?
He had friends, they say.
So, why didn’t that save him?
A fog envelops the mind
Of the young man, as he
Awaits the raging
Firestorm he has begun.
For he knows, somewhere in
In his twisted soul, haunted
By an eight-year old’s smile,
(No more hurting people.
Peace.) that he is doomed.
Haunted by a beautiful Chinese student’s
Steadfast gaze, by a young Medford woman,
Twenty-nine years old, who
Served food and life to people,
He awaits his turn
At the grim table laid for him.
He has sown the wind,
Now, he will reap the whirlwind.
Before that, we want to know:
Why? Why? Why? Why?
And even when he, shouting, answers,
Bitter and vengeful, or
Weeping and ashamed, or
Laughing and scornful, or
Guilt-racked and tormented,
We shall never find out.
And the whirlwind will carry
Away the shouted words,
And we know we can never get back Kansas again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~