It is a beautiful song/poem that mingles romanticism and genuine political discourse. It is a very philosophical piece of work, operating almost entirely on the level of the generic or the universal. It has a strong ethical core, which charges it with a bond of political responsibility.
It invites us into an ironic reconsideration of 'man'. What does it take to be a man in terms of human experience? That is the initial question. The essential question is always about time--the time of action, the time of giving it bak in turn , the time of the plunge and so on. The poem is like a clarion-call for making that time of revolution and change possible.
The images of the poem are not loudly political at all. The time of the white ducks (peace!) sleeping in the sand or the time of man looking at the sky, trying to see things clearly, for a change are all highly contemplative images.
The philosophical implication of the poem, apart from its political message, is the unfathomability of life's mystery. The answer blowing in the wind like a war-whistle is a very ambivalent image. It may imply the obviousness of the answer. Alternatively, it may also indicate the unanswerable quality of the question. All basic questions of life are like that. The answer is basic but unknowable or at least indeterminate. It changes with the ever-changing wind.
Bengali singer Kabir Suman has come up with a brilliant bangla version of it. It is available on the net. Do listen to it, if you can.
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