for Rabindranath Tagore
At the dawn of the 21st century
in this era of war and deaths
my soul seeks refuge in poetry
though no one writes like Wordsworth
or Keats because lakes have dried
and daffodils do not bloom to inspire
the poets—the sylvan vase no more
impresses them to find a seam
between truth and beauty
Once the world of innocence
the world Blake portrayed in his poetry
was the world readers would dream
to build—now experience fraught with
greed flares up all over
We have witnessed world wars
and read The Waste Land
still millions have taken the road
Frost declined to pass through
Now we write elegies for Aylan Kurdi
for thousands of other children too
We write poems on mass migration
on Syria, Palestine, Myanmar
on chilling Charlie Hebdo tragedy
and Manhattan massacre
or on Rana Plaza disaster
But what else should I take refuge in
if not poetry, if not the words
written for a world free from war
and violence and blood?
Sitting under a tree without leaves
by the bank of a river without water
near a field without grass
I see a young poet writing a new poem
after 100 years on tree, field, river
and flower in imagination—
imagination indeed creates poetry
From this heated globe
from the world of the dying
with this bleeding heart
I send my love to the young poet
my best wishes for a better world
Many things will be extinct after 100 years
Forms will transform
Even the deathless will be forgotten
but words will continue to live
