We gave our guns away

Sharm de Alwis

The sentinel at the check-point
Waved them briskly down
And as the driver stepped out of the vehicle
To produce his vehicular papers
His little son of a fledgling three
Stepped out too
Egged by impetuous drive of callow youth.

And as he mingled with the gun-toting soldiers
"We gave them away," said he
In the wonderment of the innocent,
I who have seen the serenity of the years gone by
When our country and the world were at peace
In the wake of a grisly Second World War
"And why not?" I told my inner self.
Begin with kids. Keep them from gun-toting in early years
When even cartoons now reek of violence.

With Religion telling us to love one another
We are not united, we stay divided
Wearing a thread-bare cloak of animosity
Spurred by a territorial imperative
That responds not to the faculties of reason, love and compassion
We hurl ourselves in gay abandon
To death and destruction
Just as it has been prophesied in the Vedas and the Bible