Sunday Scribbling #146: Pilgrimage

i. Estuary Shroud

Rana walked in the afternoon heat
Teardrop leaves, gold dust pollen at his feet
Shiva rumbled from his distance
Dreams of wet
The silent ones are listing

Why the long ache
Why the congenital speak
Why the inverse proportion
Anvil interpretation
Acetylene meadow
Coffin estuary
Shroud upon the noun

This is classic denial
Deaf leper at the crossroads
Kensington Square
These yellow hands
Feel the cartilage
Lose the bone, separate
Cast from crown
Wheat from chaff
Shuddering:

Call the day this
Giant heart, this blowing
Wind, this diligent pearl.

ii. Artemis

Virtue rescinded
I see what essence is
At the brink
Of an eye
The blue gate,
A sand wall and 30
Bodies: compost for the chinars
Between here and Sangrama
They said,
“Come here for the beauty
And the chinar trees”
But come too for a taste.

Four big chinar trees standing
In the middle of the lake
Blue under the shade of centuries,
Lapis for the eye and throat.

In the midst of saffron fields
The place where Zoon was singing
Sona lank and Rupa lank
Which of the four will she cut, who
If any will she spare?
Paydar dreams the lake
Out of the dream of revolutionary dust
His mother a different blue than
Krishna’s veil at the lying gate.

The next day, 40 feed
The roots that will not wander
The blind eye at the Azadi Hotel

Blinks.

iii. Native Morn

After the midnight cries,
Over the river’s deep,
Sediment of love’s ruin;
An archer’s list—
Shocked by day
Stunned by wood
Flamed by fire risen.

From the lowlands
I stagger:
Fog mutes desire and hope,
Ancient crimes fallen,
The book of days—

After the black river
There is another
Woven down your back

Redfall/nightfall

Shaken
By the cries.

Old chair on a shattered porch—
Moon’s loins,
Scattered eyes
Of night’s vigil.

Climb this tree:
My limbs, yours;
Yours, mine;
Ours, time has
Made revelry
Of loss.

iv. Druids, these revealed children

Druids, these revealed children
Blue umbrellas in the high blaze
Wandered through the plaza de las islas
Came to rest against white stone,
Shade.

An old man the youngest boy,
Squatting, thighs to calves,
Shower shoes, green shorts and tee and
Someone’s heart broke
This afternoon of orphan time,
Tiny Buddha in limestone shade,
Sister lying prostrate in the heat,
Lifeless, eyes open to searing blue.

Mother wayfare broods,
The bottom of her belly—copious—
Stars fall in the lap of he who wanders
Heart razor-wired to memory
Crossing dreamland, crossing shattered, crossing
The last stitch of time
These gathered ruins
These splattered lives
A boy whose syllables sing the song of 46:

Treasures?
Lies?
Sundays with fathers missed?
Pennies in his mother’s pocket?

Gather him, gather you
Riverbound, this one cool and
Clear. Gather. Cool hand upon his brow.
Gather. Birdsong in his heart, gold
Sun in his mouth. Count toes, count fingers—
Map the caverns from you to him,
Undertow of privation
Fields of weary, this weary world,
Worry world, worry.

What to give him, he me, my
Pockets too were empty—

My eyes. Here: take my eyes,
New and old,
The palms of your hands,
Cat’s eye, tiger, steelie

Etch your circle and let fly—