No need to wonder what you are:

Bengal's brightest, closest star

in the night sky - though on the Earth

none noticed your auspicious birth.

Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain

plead that you be born again

to sit beneath a tree and sing,

the whole world held on one taut string.

Though Man is made of river-mud

your music fills our veins like blood:

the known song of an unknown bird,

though seldom seen so often heard

that dervish, sweeper, weaver, king

join hands to dance in one great ring.

A friend to guide us, that you are,

saint and singer, Lalon Shah.

John Drew has lived on both sides of the Himalayas.