Long after Aarti fires
Extinguish
A late boat returns
While some colleagues rest
On gentle ripples
And others await repair
Uncomfortably aground
Aum
The sound
Resonates
Like kundalini
When spirit rises
Energy of life
And being
I stop by her ad-hoc shop
Mapping my way home
In my mind
From here
A set of stairs
Like a hundred others
All along the the Ganga banks
For miles north and south
Except these stairs
Lead home, almost straight
A few boats rock
As tourists clamber aboard
Laughter and photographs
As my camera surveys the scene
One boat begins to move
Oars dipping, splashing
I find frame on the boat
Zooming out; zooming in
Click a few exposures
And through it all
A grand parade
Of faces, of beings
The beauty hardly noticed
Then turn around
To discover
Yet another wonder
Leaves me to wonder
How many others
Reflect upon this other