ENCOUNTER
–
from the Indian side –
He
stept from the plane,
tall as a crane,
his ebbing gray hair
ruffled by the air.
A
local film magnate
who minted money by the second
for a while did stagnate
with a bouquet and a rose garland
at the airport to greet him
in the covey come to meet him.
Said
one:
Sure
as a gun,
me you needn’t convince,
he does look like a prince.
Cried
another:
Look,
dear brother,
Stephen
Spender!
Is
he legal tender
in the realm of English verse?
His
numbers are so terse,
one goes out of gear
to know his meaning clear.
Then
a third: Hist!
Wasn’t
he once a communist?
Ay,
ay camarade,
he sang the aubade–
the poet he is, he wailed
about the God that failed.
Cut
a fourth raising his fist,
he seemed a working journalist:
Who
comes to roost,
who gets the boost
in the double-barrelled
Encounter
born to make a treble stir?
And
for a mag what a medieval name
smacking of shield and lance
and knight and dame?
But
walking with us we saw his majestic walk,
and on platforms we listened to his spirited
talk
not fluent
as from a golden instrument,
but sedate,
deliberate,
the simple, precise word his aim,
not cliches tame.
–MANJERI S.
ISVARAN
[Stephen
Spender, the British poet, visited