An Ode to the Voiceless

We called ourselves human, yet forgot what mercy means.

We crowned ourselves as civilised, yet darkened all our dreams;

We mastered earth and reached the stars, proclaiming ourselves wise—

Yet failed to hear the silent cries that lived behind their eyes.

They came with trust within their eyes, with innocence untamed.

With hearts that knew no malice and asked for little in exchange;

A patch of earth, a breath of wind, a mother's gentle call—

Yet cages rose where fields once stretched, and shadows swallowed all.

For every nest we left bereft, each mother searching on,

For every paw that scratched a gate beneath a fading dawn;

For every eye that sought our hand and found the cold instead,

For every life that slipped away while we looked on and fled—

This ode is for the nameless souls.

Whose stories went untold;

Whose only crime was being weak,

In a world that prized control.

We raised our towers toward the clouds, and we sailed beyond the seas.

We split the atom, mapped the stars, and harnessed wind and breeze.

We filled the world with roads and steel, with engines, light, and sound.

Yet somewhere in our march ahead, compassion stayed behind.

We wrote our laws, we built our wealth, we praised the age of man—

While countless lives without a voice

were lost beneath our plan.

You had no tongue to plead your cause, no words with which to cry,

Yet every tremor told a tale beneath the watching sky;

A frightened glance, a faltering breath, a heartbeat beating fast—

The language of the voiceless that we chose to walk right past.

Your silence was not emptiness.

Your stillness was not peace;

You asked for nothing but to live.

To wander, breathe, and be.

So let your memory remain.

Long after ours is gone;

Let every field that shelters life

Remember what went wrong.

May every hand that reaches down

Choose kindness where we failed.

Until no creature turns away.

From footsteps drawing near.

And when our towers turn to dust,

Our monuments to stone,

May gentler things outlive our names—

The wild, the wind, the dawn.

May forests open without fear,

May wings rise unconfined,

And every creature finds its place.

Beneath an open sky.

Then run beneath that endless blue,

Where no chain waits ahead;

Where grass bends softly with the wind,

And fear has finally fled.

No cage behind you, no hand above— 

Only earth, and sky, and light.

You were never ours to conquer.

You were never ours to own.

You were alive.

And that should have been enough!

Sreejith Kulaparambil