Dying For Lack Of The News Poem by Denis Mair

(--- thinking of lines by William Carlos Williams*)
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In a poorly drained village west of Chennai,

where standing water reached right up to people's doorsteps,

you'd see them sloshing through water to get back home.

Even though Neruda never met them,

his poem told of walking around through floating ashes.

A cohort of diehard ragpickers in Delhi

comb through trash for pieces that fit together.

A different beggar gang salvages circuit boards in heaps,

which they throw into smoky steel-drum fires

to catch the molten trickle in a pan,

so their boss can sell the little round ingots.**

The sannyasi who has stood beside them

has stories that fill you with dread and hope,

unless the appetite of your imagination has died.

Every day someone's imagination comes back to life,

thanks to a story won at the cost of painful witnessing.

Someone else's imagination dies for lack of the news

told by one who walks among the powerless and listens.
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* 'It is difficult/ to get the news from poems/ yet men die miserably every day/ for lack/ of what is found there...' from William Carlos Williams, 'Asphodel.'
** To find out more about this problem, search for this article: Times of India, 'Illegal E-Waste Burning Persisting Near Delhi'.