Don’t let the Apes say that

Of once-in-a-civilization chances, gone a-begging every time

We have forgotten Hiroshima
but then most of us haven’t been mass-murdered yet
in the name of the greater good

We have forgotten 9/11
but then most of us haven’t been mass-murdered yet
in the name of the greater God
We live, even if it can barely be called that

We have forgotten Selma
but then the blood of slaves doesn’t run in all our veins
even as our edifices stand on a foundation
poured in their stolen sweat and insulted tears

We have forgotten Jalianwalla Bagh
but then not all of us have felt the crushing weight
of colonial yoke on our shoulders
We were not the ones riddled with seven bullets,
dying not of the wounds, but of heartbreak
clutching our dead child to our bosom

We have forgotten Viet Nam
but it wasn’t our daughter who ran naked in the street,
napalm-struck, flesh peeling off her back

We have forgotten that light-eyed Afghan girl
who melted our heart
Now we won’t even lift our heads from our phones
to meet her still haunting gaze
from the windowsill of a failing bookstore
Lest we hear her say something that pricks our conscience

We have forgotten Heather Heyer
It took us not even three years
from when we let her blood meaninglessly soil the streets
in the name of blood and soil

We have forgotten Bhopal
Most of you are not from Bhopal
so perhaps you could be excused, although perhaps not
But I am from Bhopal
and I was there that night
And even I have forgotten

We have forgotten every abomination
whose memory, we promised ourselves,
will forever be the compass of our conscience
We have forgotten the holocaust,
The Holocaust, for cryin’ out loud
Hell, we’ve even started denying it

We can no longer tell
what is it that matters anymore
Will there be anything left to forget tomorrow
and anyone left to forget it?

Will we also forget the breaking dam
of heartbreak, regret and what-if
that we each felt welling in us this spring of Twenty
Will it become the one common stirring of the soul
that awakens us forever
Or will we surrender again to our petty addictions aplenty

If we forget this worldwide comeuppance
of Man’s gigantic hubris
then it is only fair that we be wiped out
by this thing that’s infinitesimally small
The Apes who inherit our planet will say,
“They weren’t very bright after all”

Please don’t let the Apes say it
Please don’t let it come to that!