Thank you to Editor Siddharth Sehgal of Indian Periodical for publishing my poem today.

http://indianperiodical.com/2020/10/choices-within-this-sphere/

Choices Within This Sphere

Fate or free will.

If you choose the former, what things remain

within our one sphere?

No shivering balance of them required or desired.

From creation to Armageddon, the argument rages.

I understand being in another’s shoes

having once worn them myself.

Yet, all the time spent hand wringing

is nothing but time elapsed.

So, it’s better to step up, make some hard choices.

How will you choose to see the world?

Within reading the history of man contained in books highly sought,

or our heritages spent in the cold ashes of conflagrations?

Inside the demolished lay of crumbled structures,

or within high castles?

Upon battlefields with unceasing detonations,

or upon quiet fields where sun shines and poppies grow?

Lying beneath faint stars and watching their silent swirl,

or standing under crashing, crushing avalanches of hatred?

Fate, I’ll endure no slavish following.

Don’t tell me that I have no choice.