Dr. Harb Sanghara
Dr. Harb Sanghara, a valued member of the Department of English for many years, passed away on November 18. Harb taught our students with skill, devotion, and compassion and those who shared his classroom soon realized how fortunate they were. As Harb’s colleagues, we were fortunate as well. We learned from his quietly expressed concerns for the welfare of the students, department, and university, where he had been a student as well as a teacher, and we enjoyed the benefits of his unfailing good cheer. The loss of Harb has been terribly difficult, but his contribution to the university community, and in particular to our department, was and will continue to be a source of inspiration.
New Day Poem by Dr. Harbindar (Harb) Sanghara
There is a place
Where the wind touches the human heart beating,
Speaking of the things that move us most—Touch us
Innermost in human voices, the living drums,
Making the difference between life and death
Agonizingly acute. We feel cut and aware of the power of walking the line
That circles the heart, and the other heart we reach out,
We call, even in the darkest of times, love.
There is an oak in the place we’ve been together
Its leaves stand, ribboned in dark green, fleeting gold, and burnt almond.
One falls, the others rustle gently in autumn:
A zephyr sings beneath the spreading branches
That trace the space of our lives.
The branches change colour with the fading light.
Symphony, silence, slow time
Such are the rhythms of the heart
And the places of the mind.
Treasures are moments that are shared,
And without one heart on the earth
The beat is in the stars.
I wonder what we wondered when we were together.
Sometimes thoughts would climb on wings, soaring in the dark,
For the stars dance, the drum beats—the world rocking
Recalls the Mother, the Earth, in song giving birth
To the wind's whispered truth: the line cuts, the line heals
One traces the hearts that bleed; the other, the hearts knowing not time.
Eternity watches not time but holds it for a little while.
The hand of time is not the only hand.
The stars dip in the sky, and there is a tomorrow.
The new bands of the sunrise give wings to the night's sighs
And hope brings a new day,
For every heart has a page, a chapter, a book—a place to name
Home. Remembering, love lives on from yesterday to tomorrow.
And tomorrow even comes to this very hour that spreads
And circles the love that feels and sings,
For the night's memories are the living treasures of the day;
Today's memories, tomorrow's treasures,
For there is a place named home,
But no measure for the love amongst human hearts.