Bells

for Agha Shahid Ali
(d. December 8, 2001)


I was your trump card
and dotted the inner ring of tiny bells

bells...bells...bells...you wrote
and pomegranates

Listen...when the mayfly
when he is young
with water in his wings
flies gently backwards to his mate.

What an evanescent gesture.
And every poem returned to you backwards for years

Still the amputated fingers of boys
touched you in a dream.

Exiled, we leave one world
and go on to the next.
Like round silver plates encrypted with curry

Words can never be overused.
I will be your happy little Indian
that you will be, at last,
writing about, for at least,
the next few hundred years.