WILL THERE BE A RENAISSANCE, I WONDER (A POEM)

Will there be a Renaissance, I wonder

That will “byzantium-ize” our existence!

Will you lead me through your ravaged garden

To tell me the names of blooms, storm-crushed.

Will you show me your decrepit National library

Where dusty tomes wait to follow their authors!

Will you drive me to your crumbling Art gallery

Where Picassos and Hussains await the next bonfire.

This modern world with its predilections

Has no time for beauteous artefacts of yore!

Long beautiful legs fetch more oohs and aahs

Than a Grecian Urn or a Beethovian Symphony!

So we live and so shall we finally depart,

Unsung, as we have never sung a note,

Praising the precious legacies amidst the ruins,

Our cultural death, that we mistook for Life!