Specially commissioned for The Missing Slate
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’.
