… in a warm July you layChristened and smiling …While I, a guest in your green court,At a West window sat and window …— S. H., ‘A Peacock’s Feather’
1. MARYLAND, USA | 1989
When I first saw you —I was a mere face
in a word-rapt audience —while you, on stage,
constructed lyrics,letting the tip of your tongue
and silver-white hairtremble in the perfect tenor
of its substance,its fluid frequency
that even a tested equationfound hard to balance.
Eccentricity has its gifts,its genius containing
its own sanity and calm.The Haw Lantern opened
its jaws — the titlepage pronouncing your space
and inviting my deep wantof your ink — the sepia-
scribbled “as I pass (p.39)”celebrating with
the peacock’s rain-dance,my own country’s pride.
2. DUBLIN, IRELAND | 1997
Today on Sandymount StrandI looked for you, as you did
for your father’s ashplantmany years ago.
I don’t know why I wenton this search
knowing full wellyou weren’t there,
but elsewhere gracing a shoot“plunging through glar
and Glitty Sheughs”.But the script for me
remains unfinished …the dotted line of words,
of memory, of epiphany,is something I know
tide won’t wash away.The secret lies
in accepting word’s ownintent, one that scripts
one’s own fate, with itsdesire, fatality,
unpredictability,and its elocuted magic.
[This poem also appears in FRACTALS: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1979-2012 by Sudeep Sen]