The Nation.

Forever

By Agha Shahid Ali

This article appeared in the January 7, 2002 edition of The Nation.

December 20, 2001

for Donald Revell

Even Death won't hide the poor fugitive forever;
on Doomsday he will learn he must live forever.

Is that nectar the cry of the desert prophets?
See angels pour the Word through a sieve forever.

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About Agha ShahidAli

Agha Shahid Ali was born in New Delhi on February 4, 1949. He grew up Muslim in Kashmir, and was later educated at the University of Kashmir, Srinagar, and the University of Delhi. He earned a PhD in English from Pennsylvania State University in 1984, and an MFA from the University of Arizona in 1985. His volumes of poetry include Rooms Are Never Finished (W.W. Norton & Co., 2001), The Country Without a Post Office (1997), The Beloved Witness: Selected Poems (1992), A Nostalgist's Map of America (1991), A Walk Through the Yellow Pages (1987), The Half-Inch Himalayas (1987), In Memory of Begum Akhtar and Other Poems (1979), and Bone Sculpture (1972). He is also the author of T.S. Eliot as Editor (1986), translator of The Rebel's Silhouette: Selected Poems, by Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1992), and editor of Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English (2000). more...

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