I saw you floating today and I found
how hard it is to scream underwater

To anyone out there who's listening,
I haven't come to grips
with this upside-down world. 
The agony is within inches of my heart,
as I stand holding it together, tremendously falling apart.
I don't know what to do with it all,
the sorrow, the grief and the festering guilt 
of my people's unscrupulous feat.
I saw you floating today and I found
how hard it is to scream underwater.
The long and brooding presence,
A gentle soul that once
trod well-worn paths,
Laid down by matriarchs past.
Such stark sadness dwells in your eyes,
Windows wide open for the world to see,
Pantomimes of hope,
With essence like paper.
Each movement of the trunks, calculated, silenced 
And each passing face, a tear.
Lumbering in the river, like deadwood afloat downstream, mouth closed.
Those hyenas,
I can hear them
Laughing in the wake of your excruciating pain.
In "God's own country",
where you've been viewed under His own image,
Weary and famished you sauntered into 
These lands resided by savages.
Hoodwinked into thinking that
a rigged fruit was our kindliness,
Not only did we maim you,
But we severed your trust,
So much so that when help arrived,
You declined.
Rooted you stood for hours,
Until rigor-mortis set in,
With two of your kind by the river bank,
peering at you in vain.
Now just,
Brittle bones baked by a searing heat,
Bleached beyond a perfect white.
Ascend to the heavens, 
Oh grey beloved mother and child.

- Rohan Krishnan