The sky is slate.
Its birds are marks
My child has doodled,
Gestures in dark ink
That mean only so much
As park and highway
Allow.
So much erased
By wind and cloud
That was legible
Or green and loud in
Its utterance. No tree
Can shout in winter; hear
It now.
[lineate][/lineate] It is by this
[lineate][/lineate] Practise in sounds
[lineate][/lineate] Alien that we come
[lineate][/lineate] By degrees round to
[lineate][/lineate] The quick of meaning:
[lineate][/lineate] A mound of grass buried
[lineate][/lineate] In snow.
[lineate][/lineate] The mother’s knack
[lineate][/lineate] Or father’s skill
[lineate][/lineate] To make of smudges
[lineate][/lineate] An act of will and
[lineate][/lineate] Beauty, the knowledge
[lineate][/lineate] That still it’s only love
[lineate][/lineate] We know.
~ Tabish Khair
Tabish Khair is an Indian poet, novelist and critic, currently based in Denmark. His latest novel is ‘How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position’.