"Love poems, he says, are not easy to write
because they’ve all been written before.
Words play dead. The seasons are trite.
Love poems are not easy to write
for anyone present: their lips are sore,
hearts elsewhere, or just full of spite.
And love poems are not easy to write
for absent ones: can’t remember any more
the colour of their eyes, try as one might.
Love poems are not easy to write
for the dead: after the stint of sorrow,
ironies of relief, one’s stricken with blight.
Turning over and over tomorrow
and yesterday, day is already night.
Love, unwritten, cataracts his sight."
A. K. Ramanujan, Love 10











