When you uproot a poet, you ****** away her 'self'
Because her self is enjoined to the soil beneath her feet,
With tendrils she seeks sustenance from her land
And blooms into songs of love and promises to keep
When you rob a painter of her colour palette
That shone messily but beautifully of the hues,
Of saffrons and greens merging together and seeping
Into the brown of her skin- the only colour she knew,
You turn her hands into barely-there phantoms,
Unable to create a canvas of her heart's song,
Jarred by chants of 'who are you?' 'where are you from?'
'do you belong?' 'prove you belong!'
How does she prove her belonging to the cradle
That birthed her, that housed her,
Whose elements are admixed with all her blood inside
How does she profess her allegiance to that earth?
It is as if being exhorted to prove she is alive,
inhale, see!, exhale, see!, I breathe, see!
It is as if being wrenched by her limbs to gauge their depth
the pulse in my arteries, see!, these crimson rhythmic spurts, see
O my land, I bleed with abandon;
O my land, I bleed in poetry for thee.