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Shabash

Shābāsh (Hindi: शाबाश, Urdu: شاباش, Punjabi: ਸ਼ਾਬਾਸ਼, Bengali: শাবাশ, Telugu: శబాష్) is a term used in the Indian subcontinent to signal commendation for an achievement, similar in meaning to
bravo and kudos.


……………………………………………
a poem writ sometimes, oft,
snaps back,
I was surprising recipient
of a commendation in language
I knew not

the poem spoke well
of broken boundaries,
between in this instance,
Jew and Muslim,
capturing a momentary parting
of the seaways and
walls of misbelief
and mischief,
normally employed
to keep our divisions,
parted perpetually

I’ve decided to begin to
use shabash now,
my ‘go to’ word
from now on,
a small quiet way
to say
well done

it starts with one word,
a stretching hand across
the face fence,
imagining John Lennon’s
imagine-world,
who lay dying when I was
a young father of thirty,
me residing less than a
mile away from each other

little could I imagine then that
poetry would pick me at all,
especially to write of words
in dialects I don’t speak,
but imaging their pastel colorations
flying by in gentle breezes,
eager to be grabbed,
plucked from the air,
tongued and loved

so!
when I say to you,
in the softest spoke,

shabash!

to all of us,
for choosing this path,
using your words in
every dialect,
to spread the imagination
of good will

8-4-2019
10:10 am
S.I.