India

India, India,
where harmonium voices drop sweet tears on pale cheeks and mandolins stretch heart strings over tabla skins,
where eagles nest in silent swooping arcs as creased old women thread garlands in the dusty shade below,

India, India,
where airplanes soar into the fiery setting sun and the glowing tips of sandal sticks send curls of sweet smoke twirling into the night,
where marble men meditate in silence, sending out subtle vibrations from cosmic bliss centres in the sky,

India, India,
where the bugals swarm and flock in sunset reverie, scrawling musical spectrums over lavish lake-bed palaces,
where a lonely cow rests beneath the bridge as laughing schoolboys kick a soggy ball around her shit-flecked hide,

India, India,
where snow white ponies graze peacefully on rocky ledges framed by rose pink rhodedendrons and mountain mists,
where golden tear-stained goodbyes swell sweetly in fortress alleyways and honeyed memory, prayer and music fill the dusky, desert air,

India, India,
where sound resounds in smoke and dune and fire is fed with dark moon sweets,
where perfumed mango juice drips down salty chins in rivers of sticky paradise,

India, India,
where monks sip cappuccino in cyber cafes and grinning exiled gods peek out from thick lenses over barb wire fences,
where women squat and scrub and cook and cackle, feeding the fires of the family with their gossip and scraps,

India, India,
where media flesh feasts drive dark desires in the hearts of men, forcing their fists at every flash of gold,
where children defecate in valleys of burning rubbish and acrid, plastic smoke chokes the gods buried in mountain temples,

India, India,
where bearded babas bathe abandoned pups in glacial waters and karmas and corpses are swept out to sea,
where pus swollen infections ooze from the legs of the lost smiling children, cartwheeling joyfully on concrete flyovers,

India, India,
where fields of white butterflies float amongst the building sites and green grass spurts forth from discarded iron girders and piles of bricks,
where armless, faceless, skinless hordes seep from cornerstone to step, their broken, twisted fingers invisible to the stony crowds,

India, India,
where youthless, joyless, barefoot men crack roadside rocks in the midday heat, coughing on dust and chillum,
where ash-smeared, cash-steered sadhus smile and beckon on holy walls with withered legs and glowing eyes,

India, India,
where lion, tiger, crane and crow clear the darknesses of heart and body and let life flow back into westward souls,
where Shiva, Shakti, Ganesh and Rama rule the lands with myth and magic, devotion and rebirth, opening eyes and mouths in sacred song,

India, India, India,
where my heart sings and swells and sighs,
where colour, music, spice and tears overlap,
slipping, sliding, merging into one another,
where all life is yoga and everything is in unison,
connected,accepted,
lucid, lurid,
throbbing, breathing,
a-live,
India.