On a Riverside in Calcutta, India

The factory chimney puffs and smokes
Its dusty soot
Into the air.
Cars and trucks rush impatient
On broken roads beyond repair.

A lazy bull strolls slowly by.

Schoolgirls laugh their way back home.

Lonely riverside again.

A boatman sings a forlorn tune–
a maiden loved a cowherd boy
who played a flute,
On a riverside,
beneath a tree…

A riverside, a mellow breeze, somebody’s flute–

A loud rude horn awakens me.
On a riverside
I wake to see
A factory chimney
puff its soot.