You say it all When you say nothing at all

To whom this may concern.
You say it all
When you pay
that migrant's train fare home.
You said it all when you were seen

concerned at the Vizag gas leak.
You say it all when you sit with them

in their villages over a kullad of chai.
Or when you ride that local train home.
Not in that enclosure
Where drones of flying footwear chastise
the chaste utterance of good sense..
You say it all
When you are the microphone
To Raghuram Rajan, Abhijit Banerjee
and other elevated minds

that slipped through their sieve.
That's when your voice comes shining through.

You're not you when you say it like him

And the other fellow. And the other.
Giving tit for ratatatat.
When you dribble clever lines dipped in vitriol

that can never match his.
Not because you cannot. No.
Because vitriol doesn't sit well on your tongue.

It doesn’t. That’s not you.
Stop forcing your tongue into his mouth.
Not nice. Not you.
Hold that tongue instead
In your hands
that reach out.
Put that tongue into your heart
Which we think is in the right place.
Stick that tongue on your feet.
Walk their talk as they say.
Good to have talkative feet.

You must know.
You're not Duryodhana's mace.
You're Krishna's flute.
You're not Goliath of loud voice,
            heavy armor, sword and shield.
You're David the shepherd boy
With your harp and lute.
And that innocent little thing called a sling
With those nice smooth stones
Of compassion, empathy, insight, earnestness, grit
That brought Goliath down.
Take aim with those nice smooth stones.
And then fling.

Don't step down
as some say you should..
Step up. And up. And even higher
Not to the throne. Not the pedestal.

Step up to the halo.
Like your mother did
When she refused the kingly crown.
Be the halo
round a good head
Democratically picked.
From all those fine minds.
You have many

With fiscal abracadabra beyond the charlatans of now.

Arjunas to your Krishna.

Young lions rarin to go.

Those with the gift of the gabardine tongue.

Those who are possessed of the DNA

Of a body we respect.
.
Forget the one that flew over
to a wishful gain.
Set up pedestals for those who  stayed.

Do it soon. Do it now.
Before this dusk turns to dark.