[966] Sit

Guest poem submitted by Salima Virani <svirani@>:

Sit, drink your coffee here; your work can wait awhile.
You're twenty-six, and still have some of life ahead.
No need for wit; just talk vacuities, and I'll
Reciprocate in kind, or laugh at you instead.

The world is too opaque, distressing and profound.
This twenty minutes' rendezvous will make my day:
To sit here in the sun, with grackles all around,
Staring with beady eyes, and you two feet away.

	-- Vikram Seth

I love this poem by Seth.  It hit me hard when I first read it.  I realised
that so much of my communication is done electronically these days and it
has gotten so cryptic and purpose-driven over time that I'd almost forgotten
what it was like to spend an afternoon 'talking vacuities'.  I like it also
because it reminds me of my friends from college and university ... with
whom I spent many such twenty minute rendezvous ... and the nostalgia of
being back in Bombay just sweeps me away (sigh).

Some day I'll make it happen again.  A trip to Prithvi Theatre maybe, two
cups of coffee, two friends and a twenty minute rendezvous :).

Salima.

[Minstrels Links]

Vikram Seth:
Poem #650, All You Who Sleep Tonight
Poem #754, Protocols
Poem #460, Round and Round

From: Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh@>

+++ Abraham Thomas [20/12/01 03:33 +0900]:
>  Sit, drink your coffee here; your work can wait awhile.
>  You're twenty-six, and still have some of life ahead.

I must really thank Salima for this poem.  It sort of provides me a solution
for all these 15 hour workdays I'm having here in my new job @ hong kong ...
(and because I happened to be chatting with another friend - also an expat
bombayite) about just this kind of feeling.

>  The world is too opaque, distressing and profound.
>  This twenty minutes' rendezvous will make my day:
>  To sit here in the sun, with grackles all around,
>  Staring with beady eyes, and you two feet away.

This one has more than a touch of Omar Khayyam ... immediately reminds me,
for some reason, of "a loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou".

-- 
Suresh Ramasubramanian + suresh <@> kcircle.com
Friday@ + http://www.kcircle.com
Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.  -- Ambrose Bierce

From: svirani@  Thu Dec 20 18:05:16 2001

Glad you liked it.  I suppose we have (atleast one) common denominator
..the 15 hour work day sounds all too familiar. :)


**********************************************************************
Salima Virani
Power Budd LLP
Barristers and Solicitors
1 First Canadian Place
Toronto, Ontario M5X 1C7
www.powerbudd.com