Stamp

by Sudeep Sen

(on Joseph Brodsky’s 75th birth anniversary | May 24, 2015 )

But soon, I’m told, I’ll lose my epaulets altogether

and dwindle into a little star.

— J.B., ‘1940–1996’

Philately’s feathered frame — 
 mint-fresh stamp — 
veneration reserved for a few.

New epaulet — your sepia
 wind-swept visage — 
portrait’s serrated edges

prompting old-fashioned
epistolary letterforms.
 Watermark is merely

A Part of Speech — 
 heaven’s histories have
no biases, just celebrations —

to Discovery, To Urania,
On Grief and Reason, So Forth — 
 an occasion again, to rejoice.

Sudeep Sen is widely recognised as a major new generation voice in world literature. Sen’s prize-winning books include: Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems, Distracted Geographies, Rain, Aria, Ladakh, The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry, and Fractals: New & Selected Poems|Translations 1980–2015. A new book, Blue Nude: New Selected Poems is forthcoming. His poems, translated into twenty-five languages, have featured in major international anthologies; and his words have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, Newsweek, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Telegraph, Herald, Harvard Review among others.