Wednesday, October 30, 2013

snakes & spiders

spiders
cast their slender threads
across my door . . .
how little it takes to weave
one’s own confinement


--A Hundred Gourds 2:3, June 2013


snakeskins
in my cellar—
brittle
and translucent
these shed selves

--GUSTS 18, Fall/Winter 2013

Thursday, October 24, 2013

a lotus bud unopened


reading river hymns
in the Rigveda
before I journey
‘round the globe . . .
the same pulse in my own wrist

distant temple bells . . .
how clearly I hear the words
in my dream
slip into the dance
wherever you can

my snapshot
of an artist sketching
Shiva
carved in stone. . .
what eludes our grasp

climbing
the  sacred hill
in search
of the goddess—
the way lined with garbage

crippled
like my own son
this beggar
hitching himself along
on calloused hands

untouchable—
a mother and child
relieve themselves
under the jewelers’ billboard:
trust in God and gold

the path
Gandhiji walked
to his death—
fresh rose petals
in his footprints

barefoot
I lay marigolds
at the flame
of a Great Soul
still burning


Atlas Poetica 15, summer 2013