Verses

Two almost back-to-back posts! I must have rediscovered my blog!

Today's post is about two poems of Vikram Seth that I particularly like. This semester I had taken a poetry workshop, as a result, not only did I have to write twelve poems of my own, I had to read a similar number of poems of my classmates, plus nearly a hundred others.

These two have been particularly interesting, mostly because of their simplicity.
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All You who Sleep Tonight

All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right
And emptiness above -

Know that you aren't alone
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years.

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How Rarely These Few Years

How rarely these few years, as work keeps us aloof,
Or fares, or one thing or another,
Have we had days to spend under our parents’ roof:
Myself, my sister, and my brother.
All five of us will die; to reckon from the past
This flesh and blood is unforgiving.
What’s hard is that just one of us will be the last
To bear it all and go on living.