Postscript
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 March 2020
Summary
How much heart is left in the world, you asked.
How much the wager?
I who have tried to touch you
in the shadow of the Southern Cross
I who have combed your hair like I would have combed
the mane of a tornado
I who have tried to dance you
by the mango grove
and who tried to thread dhania leaves
to decorate your ears
I cannot find the measure
I have tried to place pebbles on the scale
I placed rocks
I placed myself
And there is silk and vine leaf
And a bucket of fresh monsoon rain
I have written songs to make fish sigh
I have painted smog and surf and a green horizon
I have turned swallows into prehistoric hens
I have tattooed a trident on my forehead
And smoked cow-dung to pacify the wasps And had a Tyger pacing on the soft lines of my palm
I cannot find the measure
I hated no one, yet struggle was my daily bread
Loved people deeply and next to people craft
I learnt to cherish even the ibis call of dread
the shark's magnificent tug
And as the journey ebbs and rhythms splinter
You have stopped me gathering wood to raft the other shore
I cannot find the measure.
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- Around the World in Eighty DaysThe India Section, pp. 96 - 98Publisher: University of South AfricaPrint publication year: 2014