Who will teach me to understand? to recite
the poetry of languages I don’t know?
I feel the songs glowing in the darkness
the voice of raindrops falls into the night
a catch in my throat, and I can just guess
snatch at half meanings of what I can’t follow.
Someone plucks a tune from one single string
and softly croons as he goes by unseenhidden by fuzzy lines of fields and slopes;
far away an urban amplifier is pulsing
a different message of loneliness and hope
and I’m caught, yanked baffled in between.
Tell me if you’ll come and ferry me there
across the hazy stone edge of those schisms thick tree canopies meet raging dust storms
the wind whistles unconcerned, unaware
of flying sand patterns, seconds’ sculpted forms
flash out like lightning, forked but lissom.
Wish I'd learnt Punjabi while I had the chance. And French. Spanish. Italian. And of course, Arabic. A couple of numbers that I love but can't follow:
Another contemporary Arabic one
