Changes
Having seen changes galore
I now rest my case: embrace-
Not just change/s but the consequences…
Hard, especially for us who want to remain firm
For we were brought up to have backbones
That are not supposed to bend (or at least not easily)!
But the times, the morals, as a poet friend put it,
They are a-changing and so must we.
And yet the old beckons
And once again I realise how right my good saint was
When he once told me, “bagerok, don’t just change
But try and be the change as wise Gandhi told us”.
To change or not to, to be or not
How the words ring and ring and then haunt
As we struggle to cope, balance memory with event
Wondering, what if, why, how, who, etc, etc, etc
Our ghosts reminding, returning, reckoning-
And finally, resting.
-Kirpal Singh
About The Poet
Prof Kirpal Singh is a poet, literary and cultural critic, and university lecturer, whose influence extends beyond literary circles.
Prof Singh, currently the Chief Academic Officer at TVI, has written several collections of poetry and books and articles on creative thinking and has been on the local literary scene since the 1970s. He was the first Asian director of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (1993-1994). He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Stern School of Business, NYU.
About this poem, penned in March 2018, Singh comments: “Change is phenomenal…from time immemorial humans have been preoccupied by and with change. The poem is an attempt to reflect this in my own life as I have been very blessed to have had several options/routes but chose the ones I did and these, as the American poet Robert Frost would say, have made all the difference.”
Main Photo: Shutterstock
