One day
I’ll learn to use poetry as weapon.
From the silent plateaus of solitude
with the sheer power of voice
raise tides in these impotent seas.

One day
I’ll learn to call by name the hawk.
Slicing pieces from my sun-baked skin
scatter in all four directions.
Smash this shield of legitimacy.
Scream in the whistle of the mountain train.
Rise to the skies with the funeral flame.

One day
I shan’t search for logic in this poem.
Nor consider a sin writing one
waking right from the warmth of a night discharge.
And shedding, at last, my haste to sign beneath
sip with all that is human in me
the Nirvana* in the last line.

One day
I’ll convince myself with all the oratory I know –
not all poetry is about
coming to terms with life.

That day
poetry will flow in me
and I in poetry.

* Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is in leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.

- Kahlil Gibran
Sand and Foam

(First published in The Journal of the Poetry Society (India), Vol. 12, No. 1, Summer 2001)