Of Things Of Interest To One And All Poem by Gayathri Seetharam

Of things of interest to one and all
-Gayathri B. Seetharam
Yesterday, the thought came to me
That Britain, despite historical evidence to the contrary,
Had liberal poets and writers who were not racist
For it Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow
The black sheep which bleated Baa Baa
Had three bags full of wool
Implying that black people have plenty to contribute also;

And of course, loyalty was a much celebrated quality
Concur both poems
And in Canada, "where the grass is green and the girls are pretty"
I have, while driving in the past and being driven around now and then,
"Wind in my hair, mechanical music";

But here and now, as I watch tennis on TV
I feel magic in the air
Muscular and cardiovascular motion
Making fluidity of movement come alive;

Anti-racism, anti-misogyny and anti-religious extremism sentiments
Must be the order of the day
And it has been in PM Justin Trudeau's time
For he has apologised for Canada's past wrongdoings
And promoted feminism and equality of men and women;

If you think it is all water under the bridge
Please do remember that the water is used to traverse on
And to facilitate irrigational and personal needs
And thus about men who as Pandarus tells Cressida in W. Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida:
Well, well! ' why, have you any discretion? have
you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not
birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood,
learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality,
and such like, the spice and salt that season a man?
And Cressida says:
Ay, a minced man: and then to be baked with no date
in the pie, for then the man's date's out;

On an aside, I, your poet say,
Perhaps, the dating game began with Shakespeare
And we do not go out on a certain day on a date
But if our dates match, we go out on a date;

And as GoodReads informs me W. Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost says of women:
"From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world."
Resuming as me, your poet, I say that women sparkle still the
Right Promethean fire which "is the beginning of fire in mankind"
And this could also be the fire of the soul
And men presumably have all virtues that are like spice and salt.


Acknowledgements:
1. Google