People running after that perfect life In a world torn apart.

One evening when I was sitting on a pier in Rotterdam I saw the ships anchored in the distance and I recalled how during my sailing days I used to look at the shore from the portholes. The shore to me was an outside world then.

IN A SAILOR’S EYE BY RUBAYET AKBAR 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 67

Through the porthole

He can see the city skyline—

Skyscrapers and crowded streets,

People running after that perfect life

In a world torn apart

By religion and race,

To love without conditions

Seems such a disgrace.

It is the age of stereotypes

In which smiles are fake

And souls are lost in a cloud of apathy.

The rattle of the weighing anchor startles him

Time to return to his world

United in the sea divided by land.