Explaining
No picture postcard or silver bangle bargained for in Jaisalmer,
no bright Rajastani puppet bought from a retainer at Mehrangarh Fort,
no folk songs heard fireside at the Ossian camel camp,
no squeeze box, tabla, and wooden flute riff
no stop at the mirrored temple to Sati Mari, a “local Hindu goddess”,
no city wide call for prayer at sunrise
or morning ragas at the Taj Ganges,
no astrologers by appointment only in hotel lobbies
or bicycle rickshaw rides through the streets of Delhi,
no sip of opium tea from the palm of a camel herder,
no Sikh offering me a honey and wheat sweet after leaving his temple,
no circumambulating the stupa in Deer Park,
where Buddha told his disciples the Middle Path
and this century’s pilgrims perform prostrations, no monk offering
a fallen leaf from the tree that shaded Buddha or wind dispersing
the silkscreened prayers of prayer flags, no circle of monkeys,
Hanuman’s ancestors, expecting food and offering blessings,
not even wrapping my body
in the lavender and gold brocade sari against the outside world,
no tinkle of bells on the small girl dancing for rupees
as her father plays the rawanhattha or the boy running
on backwaters of Kerala waving,
no packs of wild pigs and wild dogs eating in the mounds of trash
outside the Taj Mahal,
nor tents pitched on all roadsides, the homes for many families,
or the girl balancing on the high wire as her father beats a drum and her mother holds
the baby in her arms as tourists take pictures
will ever complete the story.
I tell my friends I have come back from India ---
(Forthcoming In the Named World)
