After 26 years of seeing blood
Spewing out from arteries
They now protest for a few thousand
Rupees folding in their palms
To spit out the scarlet paint of Areca nuts
Made basic with lime
And a sedentary armchair next to a wheel
Chair has a little artefact on which
Betel leaves are kept. Leaves which will never
See a hero’s feet that lay amputated
In the harshest of realities
The story of the betel leaf
Resonates just like the story of the soldier
A leaf of respect and honor chewed
By a soldier who travels in a wheel chair
To protest for a miserly pension that can
Buy some betel leaves and areca nuts
They live through the sable nightmares
And the forgone grunt of a mine
To inhabit a world where they can smile
With lesions in their mouth
Inside a lonely ward in a little town
Called Maharagama
The betel leaf was supposed to embellish
Two feet and held inside open palms
In honored traditions
And not be spewed out as blood.
