Vikram Seth

three poems inspired by George Herbert
TLS 2007.01.11

Host

I heard it was for sale and thought I’d go
     To see the old house where
He lived three years, and died. How could I know
     Its stones, its trees, its air,
The stream, the small church, the dark rain would say:
     “You’ve come; you’ve seen; now stay.”

“A guest?” I asked. “Yes, as you are on earth.”
     “The means?” “… will come, don’t fear.”
“What of the risk?” “Our lives are that from birth.”
     “His ghost?” “His soul is here.”
“He’ll change my style.” “Well, but you could do worse
     Than rent his rooms of verse.”

Joy came, and grief; love came, and loss; three years –
     Tiles down; moles up; drought; flood.
Though far in time and faith, I share his tears,
     His hearth, his ground, his mud;
Yet my host stands just out of mind and sight,
     That I may sit and write.

Flash

Bright bird, whose swift blue wings gleam out
As on the stream you dip and rise,
You, as you scan for parr and trout,
     Flash past my eyes.

Bright trout, who glints in fin and scale,
Whose whim is grubs, whose dream is flies,
You, with one whisk of your quick tail,
     Flick past my eyes.

Bright stream, home to bright fish and birds,
A gold glow as the gold sun dies,
You too, too fast for these poor words,
     Flow past my eyes.

But such drab words, ah, sad to say,
When all that’s bright has fled and gone,
Praised by dull folk, dressed all in grey,
     Live on and on.

This

Hearts-ease, hearts-bane; a balm that chafes one raw;
   The soul in splints; graph with no grid or gauge;
   A fort, a house on stilts, a hut of straw;
A tic, a weal, the flu, the plague, the rage;
Bug swept in through the net; moth with a sting;
   Two planes in fog jammed blind; a mailed kid glove;
   A dance on coals that makes us yelp and sing;
A rook or roc or swan or goose or dove;
A beast of light; a blaze to quench or stoke;
   Bread burst and burnt; sweet wind-fall; storm-cloud-milk;
   Hope raised and razed; skin-ploy; sleep-foil; steel-silk;
Hands held in lieu of breath; our genes’ sick joke;
   The sea to drink or sink in; the gods’ sty;
   What we must have or die; or have and die.