I just came across this poem that I wrote in 2011, in my first few weeks of southern India. I remember writing it, looking out across the sunset – the sunset that looks different in India than anywhere else. It was a good day.
Steps down from the holy man’s shrine,
The sacred hill is the slum’s garbage heap.
Rummaged by wild pigs –
A flag of India, contrast and extremes.
Farting their burnt baseness
Up the hill like incense.
I walk the holy ground barefoot,
With beggars who too have no shoes,
Only trinkets for sale on the path to the divine.
And all the while, staccato songs from city throngs
Blast beat to heaven hunting hymns
Of thousand year temples, right now alive –
And worth the price to see.
And birds too, and the padding of my soft feet,
And the noise of someone’s thoughts,
Louder and quieter,
Rushing no where with India.
