An ode to Gabriel Garcia Marquez

You are gone, but your magic still

mesmerises us; it continues to cast its spell

into the depths of our beings;

Your loving glance,

impish smile — this demonic world now

Will starve to get enchanted

in your mystic circle;

Because you inhabited a world that was

far higher and intense

The innocence of the heart and the

romance of life were yours alone;

All the beauty of the cosmos lies in

your profound creations;

In your ‘Macondo’, in a ‘century’ of solitude,

in your maverick soul

Alternate worlds lived together — beyond

the boundaries of time-space

Continuum; one that was sinful and

ravaged and the other that was

Coloured with soap bubbles.

Once you are gone, the world realises

No one else is there now to fire imagination

with fantastical matchsticks;

This utter complacency, this mediocrity,

this shallow ideology,

This filthy display of wealth, you have left,

audacity has disappeared;

People are back to their narrow,

shelved, closed lives.

You too have retreated into yet

another miraculous space.

But we want you back with your 'timid drowned people', your 'demented dragons'

And 'the scent of bitter almonds that

reminds of unrequited love'

We can't wait to hear fabulous 'wonder'

tales of the east; we will wait and

Wait eternally for a glimpse of you in this bad, broken world.

Meghna Maiti