THE LONG WAIT
Raghavendra Manuri
Venkata
Have I not waited for you
Like the Spring behind the Winter?
Have I not been coy
As the Rose
Before the wayward wind
Exploded its fragrance?
Was I not a languishing bride
Before her beatific communion
With her groom?
Have I not been the Peace in penance
To be self-born from the
Deafening canons?
Have I not flickered like the Muse
Before it lit up the whole universe?
Why! like my starving poems
to have their fill at Philadelphia
*
President Kennedy was indignant at Mr. Halberstan’s war coverage and asked the publisher of ‘The New York Times’ to remove him. The publisher (Mr. Sulzberger) replied that Hallberstan would stay where he was. He even had the reporter cancel a scheduled vacation so that no one would think that the publisher complied with the President’s request.