River

for Sat Gupta

It is as if a river had stopped mid-flow
that underground now passes to the sea.
Its new course now, its look I cannot know;
instead I visualise continually
how this same vanished river used to be.
How strange it is that back I cannot go
to where it travels, self-contained and free,
a part of all around and visibly so.

Not just a teacher but a friend and guide;
not just the art of language but of thought
you were a master; and you brought outside
to wider view, so many of various sort,
until it might be said a river taught
the land around to speak . . . and then you died.