The Luminaries

Myth is that a loser wrote history,  

There’s no such thing.

Even if there were,

It would only contain great defeats,

Worth more than a thousand lustreless victories.

And you may come across people who died for a cause,

Whom you hesitate to call martyrs.

They are names unknown,

But their slayers are well remembered,

And you might even know their names.

No textbooks inscribe their stories,

No poets compose lyrics on them,

No squares are named after them,

No monuments are erected to pay homage to them.

They are the unknown citizens,

They are the lost causes,

Like fallen foliages they decay to become a compost,

Like prop roots they always support the tree,

They are the helpless common folk who lost their lives in the oppressive autocracy,

They are the mass who allowed the leader to speak up,

They are the soldiers who fought great battles and died unrecognised,

They are the common workforce who built the great cities,

They are the farmers who alleviated the hunger of the country,

They are the ordinary citizens who loved their country and made it prosper,

They are the invisible pillars that underpin the heft of the visible history,

They are the inevitables in every history,

Yet they are nowhere to be seen in the history,

You cannot find them no matter how meticulous you are,

For history is built upon their humble tombs,

Under this onus they sleep without the pressure of being recognised,

Fame never sojourned in their hovels,

Glory never glanced at their plight,

Yet they seemed content because

They are the luminaries.