It Might Have Been in India

Calcutta was only for one night,
and I could not wait to leave.
Already I found myself
too far inland from the ocean
and the clattering of the engines.
We would leave in morning
as we left Christchurch,
We would leave hung-over
as we left Singapore.
Still, I had not approached you.

As the wide, flat disk of sun
set at the base of a bridge,
I sat and sunk my toes in mud and filth,
wondered how a dying river,
dipped into by hand and bucket,
spiritually tapped at every bend,
reserved enough strength to push
such excrement back up to its banks
while effortlessly washing
bodies and raiment
of countless and redundant,
fetid swaths of humanity
brought daily to its banks
for cleansing
and renewal.

Purchased at the bazaar,
I brought a little stash box--
the cheap kind one could buy anywhere;
made of some indeterminate wood;
flecked with the bones of some dead animal;
perfectly hollow for holding folded thoughts within.
I opened it; pulled out a long, ebony pipe
tossed in at the last moment of the transaction
to sweeten the pot. I scraped the bowl free of resin,
dipped the end of it in the river to wash out the flecks,
keeping my hands dry as I wiped it off and watched
as a hundred little sins from the day
washed free of other hands and floated past.

I did not think of much as I prepared to leave,
wrapped in dry, crinkled paper the long, ebony pipe
procured for a friend (because, myself, I do not smoke).
I did not think of forests vanishing beyond the city,
fueling sweatshops' madly spinning looms,
or all the little hands whose works and wonders
I, and countless, thoughtless others
carried away smiling at our good fortune
with quick, unwashed hands.

Now, writing down the last details of the finishing day
I watch you--swaying, singing, chanting.
Like engines whose inner workings I do not understand
bones and skulls clatter around your neck,
carry my folded thoughts from shore to shore,
no closer to you--you closer to Kali.
Whatever you gave the man at the bazaar
for trinkets living around your wrists
held more worth to him than silver.
For a long time after you left
he smiled wide like this sun, setting,
that I will never forget.
I know, because I watched you then--
Watched how you moved,
how the world around you moved.

3/16/02