Brazil (1986) - Heroes' Death

Disclaimer: This is again from that folder with old writing – others’ writing (mentioned in an earlier blog). This seems to be a 24-year old ‘poem’ with a young boy’s lament. The ‘literary value’ is obviously minimal but it seems appropriate now with the 2010 World Cup producing so many ‘dead heroes’. I do share one passion with that young boy – as far as football is concerned, I am a patriotic Brazilian.

Heroes’ Death

 An air so bright and gay,
Perhaps, no other village to surpass,
Ecstasy of joy rang through the people’s heart,
Plentiful smiles and tears unseen.

Glory and honour, a hero’s
Desire, was granted to the deserving;
Like a twinkling star, never to fade,
The heroes went scintillating.

And lo! Then there came the war,
For what one knows not,
For none speak of the dreadful war,
For souls still chant dirges.

But when the war had come,
Heroes none turned their faces;
But beaming a heroic form, and a prayer,
They had gone for the war, armour-clad.

The war went on – spring crept into winter,
First, our young heroes braved a fight
Too much for the dreadful villains;
But, Luck soon crawled to the latter.

As winter crept in, the coldness creeping into each warrior’s heart,
And, these warriors were laid out in the cold,
Cheated, with some treachery,
None knows what, as none lived to say.

Wives came, and children too,
For their husbands and fathers;
Searching among the strewn forms,
Sending the vultures to flight.

There on the battlefield,
Or, an altar streamed with blood,
Lay our young heroes, their forms
Shed of all glory and honour they once adorned.

Once they had vested the luminous garment,
Of happiness; that light has faded.
With the coming of the chilly dawn,
To the gloomy dusk, Misery and Death linger.

Ha! Are heroes to be dropped dead;
As leaves on a tree, gloriously green once,
The fallen rotten on the ground, trampled by many?
O God! Let the heroes return and joy grow in this little village.


The young boy’s note: This ‘poem’ was written at 03:07 (22.06.1986) just after the Brazil vs. France World Cup quarter final match in which Brazil was defeated. I am very much disappointed. Let this ‘poem’ be to the ‘dead heroes’ like Socrates, Zico, Careca and the whole Brazilian team.