Change of plans! This poem will not be our friend’s birthday poem after all.

So it is going out to someone else, with the following ink and water color painting by Pinka Das, from Kolkata, India.

The inkling

Some things just must be said

Some things just say themselves

If only for a mouth

I just need to sit here and watch the fire

And know it

That it works and has worked for all time

That it is showing itself

And I would be an oracle for it

Is that what we are

The ones who can say it poetically

And once we have said it

Are we done here?