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Spring/Summer 1995, Volume 12.2

Poetry

G. S. Sharat Chandra

G. S. Sharat Chandra is a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Missouri—Kansas City. His newest books are Immigrants of Loss (Hippopotamus Press, England) and Family of Mirrors (BkMk Press, Missouri). Author of ten books, including translations from Sanskrit and English into the Indian language Kannada, a former Fulbright Fellow and recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Creative Writing, Chandra has given readings at the Library of Congress, Oxford, and McDaid's Pub in Dublin.  See other work published in Weber Studies by G. S. Sharat Chandra: Poetry—Vol. 4.1Vol. 7.1Vol. 9.3Vol., 15.1 Fiction—Vol. 15.1.


 

After the Earthquake in India

(30 September 1993)

 

it's a habit by now
head bent
at four a.m., the birds wake
to complain

they do this cackling in
forgotten dialects of the poor

yesterday's count was thirty-one-thousand
as if longing for more

the morning news will bring
more bodies to the surface

counting is one way
of thinning the eye
to a diet of faith

someone says if there's divine justice
it favors solid foundations

mud & rock slip through God's fingers

we can discuss this at length

but if prayers are shouts
pain is the lost argument

 

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