Meaning

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.

 

                            It is by this

                            Practise in sounds

                           Alien that we come

                           By degrees round to

                           The quick of meaning:

                           A mound of grass buried

                           In snow.

 

                           The mother’s knack

                           Or father’s skill

                           To make of smudges

                           An act of will and

                          Beauty, the knowledge

                          That still it’s only love

                          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’.