you pay your college fees
you fall in love
you plan the babies
and save for the future

you book next years holiday
and give up beer
and
when life is planned
and the future looked after
you are running five minutes
too late for work
you get in the wrong train
at the wrong station
in the wrong compartment
near the wrong man
next to the bomb

you look back
and suddenly
you are dead

and there you meet
thousands of babies
and mothers
and fathers and brothers and sisters
lovers and friends
hundreds of thousands
of Iraqis
of londoners
of africans
of americans
of asians
of Indonesians

all dead

frozen in time
human bodies
caught in the wrong place
at the wrong time
at the wrong moment
in the wrong country
in the wrong politics

just for a while
please don't talk to me
about destiny, of astrology
of Karma
or of politics or right or wrong
or of morality or sects or isms

for a while,
let me be angry, in anguish
let me grieve
let me believe there was no reason
let me not relieve my guilt in political discussion
for there will be time that
when we will find reason
when we will find politics
and we will relieve ourselves of the burden of guilt
each one of us, all of us

till the next bomb.

-Shekhar Kapur