Song for Joan Baez

Is home lost forever, then,

Lost for evermore?

Every creek I crossed ahead

Was cooler than before.

The things that I set out to do

I know not what they are;

Dear people of my little town,

I've strayed, I've strayed too far.

At rise of dawn I see no sun,

At dusk no voice from home;

O mother, this city has

So little, so little room.

I think, nor care, nor feel, nor share,

I am busy all the time;

And what I do I only do

Because it brings a dime.

Is this the way it has to be?

Is this the way about?

This silver that has strangled us

Could we not do without?

Is home lost forever, then,

Lost for evermore?

Will Jesus help if all we do

Is multiply the score?

Badri Raina

(published in Crescent God and Other Poems, Writers' Workshop, Calcutta, 1982; the poem was written in 1970 in Madison, USA at a time when Joan Baez was the girl friend of Nob Dylan who has just won the Nobel Prize for Literature)