April Day of Birth and Death

(On the occasion of William Shakespeare’s birth and death on April 23)

A new born babe you came to us
Under a Stratford roof;
Was there across your tender brow
A mark, a foretold proof

That your quill was already in your palm,
And an infinity in your head,
Eyes that saw histories before,
And the worlds to come ahead?

Your grammar came not from the school nearby
But from a well spring of givenness;
To which you added sentient empathy
Unscarred by prejudice.

You wrote the world like it was,
With beauties, warts, and all;
You spared not the twisted heart,
Nor king, warrior, fool.

Your time came full uncannily
In a mystic circular way;
Your not so little life was rounded
On your natal April Day.

What, nonetheless, you left behind
Serves us lifetimes round;
However hoards of penmen have writ,
They have not covered that ground.

April 23, 2014 Badri Raina

[Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564 and died on April 23, 1616 at the age of fiftytwo.]