Marching Ants

Standing on my balcony
I see the station behind bars
Multitudes emerge like ants every day
Each one cuffed and chained

Faceless faces they all look alike
Frowning, concerned, lost in thought
They rush by silently
Shifting, shuffling, all in a hurry

What do they think
Why do they worry
What is the hurry
I wonder if they really know

They march on like soldiers
As if to face a fight
Indoctrinated by words of passion
Decimating the fellow being

Just to uphold thoughts
They maim and kill their own
The wizard controls their lives
By turning the knob of fear

The answer he propounds
Is in upholding the law
Imprison all those who tresspass
Freedom lies in slavery

Some bow, some bend
Some pay obesience by prostrating
Be obliged, stay obliged
For your life is not yours, you are not you

They make you feel secure
These thoughts that they sell
The cost is very small
That useless thing you call freedom

Ashoka my dear, where art thou
What happened to the rule of Dhamma
Which entailed the enlightenment of individuals
The rule of law just entails their imprisonment.

You spread wisdom and knowledge
To take place of darkness and fear
Fear which makes us greedy and corrupt
Fear which creates doom

The focus has shifted to groups
The individual face is now faceless
Identities are lost in the storm of duties
The wizard laughs as we all toil

We have become alchemists of yore
Mining metals and turning them into gold
Extracting till the last drop
The blood of our mother

Accumulate, accumulate he yells
There is no tomorrow
Smiling benignly on those who say fun is sin
Work is preferable to humanly pursuits

We shrink from a touch
Cocooned in our shells
Love is now mobile
Soon babies will be made virtually