Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

02 Nov 2005, 16:50 p.m.

Sweet Lyrics

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2005 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

Reading Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate, a novel in sonnets. I like recognizing the scattered nice (precisely fitted) rhymes, and familiar external and internal locations. I adored A Suitable Boy as I loved Anna Karenina. This one, I don't know yet, but there are some wrenching passages about love:

"...Quit bugging
Me, will you, Ed -- I'm sick of lugging
This tragic burden week by week.
Some light refreshment -- so to speak --
Is what I thirst for. Ed, I love you,
But don't exhume this; there's no sense
In scouring ruins. Why condense
The happiness that floats above you
By seeding it with doubt and pain,
Crystals that force it down as rain?"

and

As Phil talks on, his eyes grow radiant.
Ed thinks of the first time they met.
The weeks have warped the placid gradient
On which his even wheels were set.
Neither the sense, at every meeting,
Of his heart's full and rapid beating,
Nor the abrupt and scalding rush
Of redness to his face, the flush
When he feels Phil's eyes resting upon him,
But something infinite and slow
And tide-like holds his life in tow.
The salt of human love upon him,
To it his leached will yields control,
Whether it stings or heals his soul.