Leaves and Inflorescences

O Parents of the world you are

Like the sun unto the lotuses

Who like their marsh-born counterparts

Bloom in the muddy realities

You have made our hearts of wood and fire

And our minds of lightning and steel

Yet in your mercy left us afloat

Like yachts in choppy seas

The heart knows all but does not infer,

It grows neither like rows of obedient corn,

Nor like the potatoes of rebellion,

It worships regardless of quality.

But where the heart is fickle,

The head is not; It is like an acorn,

It sprouts only on fertile soil,

And once germinated, cannot be uprooted.

In your wisdom you have severed,

The mortal ties between my beloved and me

You have left me alive, and useful still,

And I must stand up and think of India.

Although I will yet forge more friends,

In the fuming furnace of adversity,

How will I console my widowed mind

Where will I find such quality?