WHO ELSE IS THERE TO COME? Comments

Summer.
Sunday.
The married are all at home.
Alone in the deserted lodge
I am waiting for someone.
Is there anyone else to come?

The water jug has a hole.
It lies in a corner of the verandah
With the long neck of a camel.
Is there anyone else to come,
Tired, sweating, thirsty?

The fortune teller with his parrot is gone.
The villager looking for the house of the
ENT specialist is gone.

Everyone comes here with a thirst,
Along the same road yesterday came
The prophets and the messiahs
Sacrificing man to fate.

Gone are the emperors who
Tempting us with shady trees and wayside wells
Robbed us of our human lives.
Gone are Hieun Tsang and Vasco da Gama.
And Gandhi with the old time on his watch,
Gone too are the lip-revolutionaries
Dancing their tiresome plenums,
Draining the jug to its final drop.
Gone are all the minor characters
That I knew would come.
...
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