by Indran Amirthanayagam
The day is coming, and nobody
is turning away. It is coming like
sun rising, like rain about to burst
from cloud, and no matter
where you stand on this earth
you will feel the thunder clap,
the roar of the volcano
blowing its top, and you will
be amazed and chastened,
and you will hug love beside
you, love in dreams, love
in history. These are end
times, to take stock,
to remember, to say
thank you, to wash away
the fog of amnesia. Clarity.
Piercing. Truth telling,
standing with families of
the disappeared everywhere.
These are times of forgiveness,
of searing light despite
forces of ruin, of sore
losing, of twisting laws,
of dictatorship. These
are times for the new
civil contract, not
guns but mind,
not mockery
but respect, not
cult but democrat.
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 and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.