Times Learnings

  SEA BREEZE, BOMBAY | POEM BY ADIL JUSSAWALA 'Sea Breeze, Bombay' Poem Partition's people stitched Shrouds from a flag, gentlemen scissored Sind. An opened people, fraying across the cut Country, re-knotted themselves on this island. Surrogate city of banks, Brokering and bays, refugees' harbour and port, Gatherer of ends whose brick beginnings work Loose like a skin spotting the coast, Restore us to fire. New refugees, Wearing blood-red wool in the worst heat, Come from Tibet, scanning the sea from the north, Dazed, holes in their cracked feet. Restore us to fire. Still, Communities tear and re-form; and still a breeze, Cooling our garrulous evenings, investigates nothing, Ruffles no tempers, uncovers no root, And settles no one adrift of the mainland's histories. Glossary Line 2. Shroud a cloth used to wrap a corpse for burial Line 3. fray become worn, make worn by rubbing so that there are loose threads Line 3-4. cut/Country divided country, i.e., the Indian...

A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER | POEM BY WALT WHITMAN 'A Noiseless Patient Spider' Poem A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul. Glossary Line 2. promontory headland, high mountain projection Line 3. to explore to search or examine Line 4. filament slender, thread-like fibre Line 8. musing meditating, contemplating Line 9. ductile easily led, yielding, capable of being drawn out into threads Line 9. anchor rest or support giving stability Line 11. gossamer fine fli...