Photograph Courtesy the News York Times
I will try to balance
the books, moral
and historical ones,
caused by migration,
that give me
a paycheck and put
food and drink
on the table, that keep
my immediate family
in form, moving ahead,
that come up now
as I think of
malnourished kids
in Sri Lankan hospitals,
of mothers unable to feed
them fish or eggs,
of bread not rising
in bakeries, of petrol
so expensive and scarce
that people are dying
for lack of it, dying
in lines waiting
to fill their canisters–
the Sun murderous
and generous equally
to the unprotected,
the weak, the hungry,
while in America,
sweet land of liberty
where the Dream
courses through
my veins mature
in production of
red and white cells,
in my cozy house
whose mortgage
I pay every month
seamlessly from
my bank account
I am publishing poetry.
Indran Amirthanayagam, c) June 18, 2022