Test the lines again
Against prevailing currents
Reassured secure
Test the lines again
Against prevailing currents
Reassured secure
Harried by sea gulls
Or so it seems
Invited guests
Swarm the hands
That feed them
Life flitters on Ganga’s banks
A small cascade of humanity
Going about its day-to-day
Details succinctly lit
Or lost in silhouette
The same to my mind’s eye
What seems a bath
Instead a spiritual cleanse
What seems unclean water
Instead the holiest of rivers
On the banks of its holiest city
At rest
Between the fires
The morning long past
The evening to come
These form flotillas
Of tourists and pilgrims
To view the Ganga Aarti
Twice daily
Daylight’s final embers
Twenty of us on a small patch of sand
Beside the river Ganga
Body
In harmony
With breath
Breath
In harmony
With spirit
Spirit
In harmony
With all things
Beneath this beautiful sunset
In Rishikesh
Where the river flows
Daughter Ganga
Accept my gift
Of fire and flower
I set adrift this diya
My hopes and dreams
To your forgiveness
May the flame never expire
The petals forever bloom
Upon your purifying flow
Mother Ganga
Cleanse my body
Of my daily toil
Mother Ganga
Cleanse my spirit
Of my transgressions
Mother Ganga
Accept my ashes
Carry me to nirvana
Imprecise
Imperfect
Reminded
I am an organic being
Cradled in a manufactured world
And my notions of beauty
Have been filtered
By the means of manufacture
It’s an intense study of subject I don’t feel comfortable exploring with people. I tell myself, “I’m getting too much in someone’s face,” but I know it’s just as much putting them in my face. The subject has eyes, and a mind, and both are looking right back at me. Too intimate!
Each with their own tenor
Their own flavour
Their own meaning
There is the overall
The changing times
The recollected meaning
Of a moment
Made up of moments
All part of another
Moment