Simla India Poem (1931)
–for William L. Shirer*
there was nothing sporting
about the human beast
of burden who pulled
and pulled the rickshaws
up and down the steep hills
–until their lungs gave out
nor about those stocky
Kashmeri Pathans
who transported on their backs
the heavy goods–
they provided a sorry sight
I’ve never seen before
nor seen since–
that I will ever forget
*Author of the historic Gandhi: A Memoir
.
Grandmother
.
Going up higher and higher
being an astronaut, though
she’s dead, but zooming up until
you can’t see her anymore
She’s among the clouds,
lips puckering, you see, and
her heart goes giddy-up
in the galaxy far away
I let you know
But I can yet see her,
hair strewn about her face
as she puts her hands before
her eyes like a disguise, and
I keep watching her
Seeing her straight up,
for she becomes truly
an astronaut, but then
comes down again
eager for a splash
Her spaceship intact,
cameras all around
though she disappears,
going again higher up
Yet coming down, you see,
with waves all around,
nothing else–
splash-splash.
.
BIO: Cyril Dabydeen– “a noted Canadian poet” (House of Commons, Ottawa). His books include My Undiscovered Country/Stories, God’s Spider, My Multi-Ethnic Friends/ Stories, and Imaginary Origins: New and Selected Poems, My Brahmin Days and Other Stories, and The Wizard Swami (novel). His Drums of My Flesh, is a Guyana Prize winner for best novel, and was nominated for the IMPAC Dublin Prize. Cyril’s work has appeared in over sixty literary anthologies, e.g, Poetry, The Critical Quarterly, Canadian Literature, the Oxford, Penguin, and Heinemann Books of Caribbean Verse, and Singing in the Dark: Lockdown Poems (Penguin/Random House, India, 2020). He juried for Canada’s Governor General’s Award (poetry) and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature (U/Oklahoma). Taught Writing at the University of Ottawa for many years. He is Ottawa Poet Laureate Emeritus.
