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Poem

Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

On the Death of a Sunday Painter

On the Death of a Sunday Painter

On the Death of a Sunday Painter

He smoked a cherry-wood pipe, knew all about cannas,
And deplored our lack of a genuine fast bowler.
My uncle called his wife Soft Hands.
Once in 1936 he sat in his Holland Hall drawing-room
Reading Ulysses when a student walked in.
Years later I read him an essay on D.H. Lawrence
And the Imagists; he listened,
Then spoke of Lord Clive, the travels of Charles M. Doughty,
“My dear young fellow . . . ”
I followed the truck on my bicycle
And left early; his friends sat all afternoon
In the portico of a nearby house.
Close

On the Death of a Sunday Painter

He smoked a cherry-wood pipe, knew all about cannas,
And deplored our lack of a genuine fast bowler.
My uncle called his wife Soft Hands.
Once in 1936 he sat in his Holland Hall drawing-room
Reading Ulysses when a student walked in.
Years later I read him an essay on D.H. Lawrence
And the Imagists; he listened,
Then spoke of Lord Clive, the travels of Charles M. Doughty,
“My dear young fellow . . . ”
I followed the truck on my bicycle
And left early; his friends sat all afternoon
In the portico of a nearby house.

On the Death of a Sunday Painter

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