in Nepal
in Nepal (June 1971)
resting in a hill-station guest-house,
after a bout of dysentery
the street dealer’s tab;
“California sunshine, clean, nice…”
is starting to hit
I’m smoking a chillum of charas
through the fug
I see a woman,
a mahavidya maybe –
pad the jasmine track
to a distant wayside shrine
pennants and wind chimes
line the pathway
incense drapes the trees
she sings
an entrancing mystifying hymn
that taken up in the songs of birds
festoons the granite range –
peak to peak to peak
she made the journey yesterday,
shoeless,
and the day before
I feel each pulse
foot… foot… foot
bruising the grass
and with each step
the sigh of rooted blades
that would walk beside her
if they could
‘her gods are not known to me,
all gods are unknown to me’
I am rooted too.
I too am rooted in the flow of this poem. Beautiful imagery all the way through to the logical ending.
Thanks, Bhi, this is one of the very few I’ve written and thought, ‘I like that one’ 🙂