Losing the Regatta

Gone, the green, the dove crying for the Garden lost.
I sit, thinking how Majnun was lucky his mind got lost.

Remember Bashō’s haiku about the battlefield,
and all the dreams for which they fought, lost?

She held my hand that year Blue-Eyed Princess won at Trieste.
Next year came high school and that same yacht lost.

Abu Bakr burnt all the Hadith he learnt?!
Woe to us for those things he* taught, lost.

Asr light in the maple trees! Just think,
in one instant, of all that the wife of Lot lost.

I’m watching minnows hoard the gold
that Paul Signac and Georges Seurat lost.

Latif, don’t insult them at the port with such tears.
He holds all we’ve left: it shines there, and is not lost.