Soon the bashful pink of the almond

Blossom will be out,

Unmindful of the bayonets.

Soon the copious brow of Zabarvan

Will again be a rash of insistent

Green, and the Chinar

In the Hamza lawn stand resplendent

In undented assertion of being.

Soon squadrons of spry swallows

Will swoop off the river bank

At hint of fading light,

Renting the calm with expansive

Chirp, as walkers along the Bund

Will do their time-honoured pacing.

Soon the silver streams will yet again

Flow, singing their way through

Polished pebble and immoveable

Rock, honed into human shape.

Soon, wizened, crinkled faces

Of  ancient wisdom will hold

Their heads to the blue sky

And answer to the call of the Muezzin,

Knowing that, however the boots

Maraude the streets and lanes,

The stillness of eternity will never

Desert the depth of their souls.

I alone will rue the absence

That gnaws at my innards,

Missing life in the desert sands

Of  hollowed advancement.

Give me back, now past eightieth year

Of my life, a day of that Spring

In the Xanadu of my beginning,

And let it not end till I breathe

A long breath as I go, inhaling

The divinity of that sentient expiring.

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