Sheikh Peer of the Twentythird

(On the occasion of William Shakespeare’s birth and death on April 23)

You died the day you were born.

And immortalised

The day you died.

Four hundred years after

We come to you for

Knowledge of our world

Which you saw coming

As your sentience unfurled.

Used to the full, you

Remain inexhaustible.

Your incomparable words shame

Our cocksure certainties;

In infinity of percipience you

Enact the storm and the breeze.

May, O Peer, in our wilderness,

The thirst for you increase.

April 20, 2016 Badri Raina

[Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564 and died on April 23, 1616 at the age of fiftytwo.]