Now and Then

Now the clouds are pressing down
making everything grey,
everything misty. 
It’s impossible to discern which way
people are facing.
It looks like everyone
is facing both ways,
so it is impossible to know who to follow,
impossible to know which path to take,
which is the good and which is bad.

Then, in the old days
it was all so clear.
This was the way.
These were the good guys,
the brave guys with the guns,
sending out their scouts 
from the circled wagons
of peaceful pioneers
in search of a better life
in the vast empty land.
Protecting them from 
the bad guys,
the savages,
the cowardly braves
with the bows and arrows 
and scalping knives.

It didn’t always go to plan.
But the cavalry usually
arrived just in time.
And the good guys 
always won
in the end.

Didn’t they?


First published in Setu, February 2017

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