Yangon

Their scarves dye the street red,
reducing the drabness of an afternoon
pitting black boots against bare-brown feet.

Moss-green coating on iron no longer
inspires fear, nor their war machines
wearing mechanical obedience.

Orange robes flow like a river in city streets,
their skin heads reflect the sunlight
that breaks through now and then

as if to end the monochrome of tyranny
like clouds, heavy and lingering.
At the end of the road find

all competing colors, lined up in rows
with their weapons raised, their heads
lowered like bamboos.

Gandhi would have worn his robe white
in this overcast, on the ground
seated like a heavy log.