The state of the global village

We are in the anteroom,
in a castle we knew as world,
playing out perhaps the last act
of a drama; men, women, children
all at once engaged
as the sleepwalking Grouch,
cleaning the dirty hands;
caregivers are failing,
so are the perfumes of Arabia
to wash the scarlet guilt away.

What a spell has fallen upon us,
that we are outwitted
by an invisible,
so-far-invincible virus.

The historian inside
trembles to paint
the grim picture in words,
of how an imperceptible petite germ
failing the intelligence
of the unprepared
disabled, challenged world
that has successfully cracked
into the outer space.

News, tracking the countless
figures falling as flies,
as though keeping the scores
of a horrendous Olympic game,
every continent, losing lives,
liquidating businesses;
putting work to an abysmal
standstill; lockdown, the sole remedy
to this pandemic peril,
confinement, the only prescription
waiting for the underestimated
enemy to perish. Everyone is jobless
except for the relentless, indefatigable,
resilient doctors and nurses.

Realisation that too much greed
is of no use, other than the futile
effort of getting rid of the guilt;
globalisation was merely to
grow and develop, uniting the world
was never the business, a concern
it ignored the decay, the screech
of the tonsured world; deglobalisation
that the world’s facing now
could finally unite humans with humans.

On witnessing the countless procession of hearse,
perhaps the stage is tired of wars;
disunities, differences might wither from within,
soul-searching might very well begin;
a new way of thinking might emerge
old and failed methods, purged;
global citizenry will perhaps concur to win;
world, a waiting room, tired of losing,
now, in the last act, eagerly washing
its hands of all the erstwhile, countless sins.