by Indran Amirthanayagam
Zoom, you are finished. The Sun is out
strolling on Easter Sunday, spring
roaring into summer making peace
in the heart and loins. Yes, imagine
that word rescued from time, recreated,
reborn 'though bombs are falling on people
and buildings in Ukraine. Refugees are
returning with brave hearts, friends;
and Zoom, you are dead like a cliché,
a doornail. In the suburbs of Kyiv
a woman is looking for keys
she buried under a nearby tree. War
continues but she does not give a damn.
She lives and dies where her home lies.
Indran Amirthanayagam's newest book is Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks). Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and has twenty poetry books as well as a music album Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube.