My poem*

On a polished sheet of paper
neatly laid out on an ornate table
and with the flourish of a Parker Pen
there is no verse that I can write.

When I come home after work

with you inside a crowded train
upon a crudely unpacked empty cigarette pack
with a pencil stub
there is a poem to be scribbled.

And yet, comrade!

that poem dedicated to you
and you alone
will escape --
most of you
will not read today,
this I know.

But there will come a day

when in a kinder world
you will read it
with so much more love,
this too I know.

*Translation of a much-quoted set of lines penned by the incomparable Mahagama Sekara

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