Swansong of courage and faith by Vivek Sharma

Hear a seedling whisper to a sapling,
the winds will retire if you wait.
Thawing ice will unleash a spring.
Your canopy will spread, and nesting
birds will find in you their shelter.
Hear the earth sing to the rake,
courage and courage and faith.

Nimbus is pompous before rain,
the rain a threat before its song,
fills the fields with ancient echo.
The echo is but a second-chance
for the sound to thump the eardrum.
send rhythm of a message quaint:
courage and courage and faith.

The swan carrying love letters forgets
a long-lost beloved — his own,
and sees trouts swim against the current
to provide their new-born fresher waters
where a crane can strain its neck or not
but how can a swan know its fishy fate
courage and courage and faith.

You command a kite and expect
to compete with eagles. Then you grow
wings and mid-flight fatigue or vertigo or drag
pulls you back to the ground. Like a lost love
the kite fades out, but your desire gambles
again. To lose joy or pain you wait, humming
courage and courage and faith.

Think of paddy seedlings in a field,
call each blade of grass your grief.
In the monsoon when the mudslingers
get busy, you toil in mud, in rain,
transplant your grief into life’s muck.
In time, you will harvest your cake,
first, courage and courage and faith.

Indian Literature | Indian Review Author | Vivek Sharma‘s first book of verse The Saga of a Crumpled Piece of Paper (Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 2009) was shortlisted for Muse India Young Writer Award 2011. His work in English appears in Atlanta Review, Bateau, Poetry, The Cortland Review, Muse India, Reading Hour among others while his Hindi articles and verses appear in Divya Himachal (Hindi newspaper, India), Himachal Mitra and Argala. Vivek grew up in Himachal Pradesh (Himalayas, India), and moved to the United States in 2001. Vivek is a Pushcart nominated poet, is published as a scientist and he lives and teaches in Chicago.