Are your soles not tired
Of beating against asphalt,
Pavements, gravel roads –
Pounding against cement and Parliament doors
With feet unfit to tread on its polished floors?
Are your soles not tired
Of bearing the load of picket
Signs wailing and ululating songs of liberation
To a congregation of nonbelievers?
Have your soles not had enough
Of chasing after white buffaloes
Only to find white elephants instead
Or do the feet of your bed offer
Enough respite for you to carry on your long
Walk to freedom the following day, and the next?
Have your comrades’ soles not walked over
Enough landmines for you to realise that this war
You’re fighting is only against footsoldiers – when one
Dies another follows close behind.
Are your soles not tired like mine?
RC Thaka is an aspiring poet and student of the arts.