A writer’s tool is his pen— 

his weapon, 

his shield against curiosity, 

when confusion, 

mixed with frothy rage seeps in: 

when a milky web 

or dust motes of bewilderment 

swam ghostlike in the air. 

And so, he lights candles,

plays Beethoven, 

stretches and falls into deep, reflective thought. 

Then he pours out, 

bit by bit, 

every word, 

every syllable, 

every rhyme. 

Ours is a refusal 

to accept the silence. 

The bird flutters and pirouettes in the sky, 

its trust embedded in its wings. 

It sings the age-long tune of freedom 

as it rides with its flock. 

So the writer teleports into his own universe— 

a stairway to the stars, where he summons all. 

With torch in hand, he takes on the world, 

laying bare the truths he’d rather not tell. 

He questions the powers that be 

and gives voice to the voiceless— 

a literary rebel. 

He, as he did and we, as we do— 

we, writers. 

He lay on the bark of trees, 

on the soft of daylight and moon. 

And there, in the silence, 

words called him. 

Words called him, and he went. 

He rained fire on the corrupt,

whose boots stamp on the lean backs 

of doomed citizens. 

He questioned 

those creatures of the wild, 

bedecked in rich folds of prodigious caftans. 

He gazed out at the ocean’s waters 

and sought to harness its unbidden depths— 

to begin with the sun 

and end with the moon, 

to grasp at a silver lining. 

[This is what you should not say of the man who went and never came back.]

Do not;

Say he did not call upon the evil men. 

Say he was not unafraid of fear. 

Say he did not retreat into his study 

to call out those pregnant generals. 

Say he failed to speak truth to power, 

nor fulfill the literary pledge. 

Say he did not rise to the door to receive that parcel. 

Say he knew of its contents—

books, letters, or fresh flowers from his lovely wife.

Say he did not explode into charred bits, 

like pieces of wood, 

and vanished into a long night we did not see coming. 

Do not say he died of cowardice. 

And do not say he is not 

a hero of bravery. 

Let his words be his bravery,

a testament to his courage 

and conviction.