A SEASON OF SPEARS

I was a young lad
When they banished us from our kingdom
Of a small house
My parents had built a year ago
Where I had planted a tree of hope to grow.

It is a tale of horror and fear, frights and bites.
The days were black , blacker were nights.
Weather was gloomy and tempers were loony;
Devil was the deity of the day.
Tramps had sold their souls to Satan .
A delirium of madness held a sway.

Dancing to the beats of drums
Marauders came in packs and droves,
They swung their banners and vomitted woes
Of cleansing their sacred land by ejecting every infidel
Or kill and throw him deep in a bottomless well

They held in their hands
A host of lighted brands
And swords and spears and scythes
To reap a harvest of heads
And scrag the people in their beds.

They broke into our neighbour's house,
Ransacked it all around
And took away all the valuables in his vault they found.
They killed his child and raped his wife
And slit his throat with a butcher's knife.
Before they could reach our house
We, somehow, managed to run for life.

They plundered our house and burnt it down.
Homeless, helpless, pennyless were we
As we were forced to flee the town.

Half-clad with feet unshod
I scampered like a wounded cod
The journey was long and the path was filthy
Littered with bodies of the dead and dying
And some survivors wailing and crying .

Our minds arrested by panic and fright
We passed through abandoned villages
Looted by goons and ravaged by riots.

We waded through dirty ponds
And canals and rivers in tide
And after a long and oppressive journey
We were able, at last , to find
A dingy hovel for our heads to hide.