varanasi drifting.

i am waiting patiently to hear whether i will be heading back to india early next year: this time to do some work in bhopal. we were meant to be notified yesterday. so i've been reading old poems i wrote while i was there in 2004.

Reality lapses.

Intensity evolves and amplifies as the boat drifts and lulls further

Into an enigmatic, magnetic world.

Past a city, emerged from the banks of the most sacred water on the planet.

A confluent city, intricately and silently construed from holy waters.

It imposes on the soul in every way that is

Extravagant and delicious.

It lures me…

Ganga is the lifeline of Indian culture.

Our wooden boat lolls through the thick Ganga-syrup –

Ripe with decomposing garlands,

Charcoal remains,

Soap scum,

Human waste,

Leaf-pressed bowls and

Food scraps.

An unordered tapestry of texture, visual flavour and ancient history:

Lengths of woven cotton and silk drift and fold down the

Steep contours of the ghat steppes,

And meet and merge with the river edge, uniting with curtains of slime.

Thematic laundry creates order beneath the chaos.

Naked, glowing skin whacks clothes against the dhobi ghats:

Violently twisting, slapping, kneading the fabric.

A solitary body, wrapped in golden silk and flower garlands,

Gently floats at the bank:

Preparation for its cremation quietly takes place on the earth behind.

Voyeurism:

A body - a love lost - quietly melts into fragrant flames.

Quiet men squat with fishing lines draped in the thick liquid:

Syrup devoid of life, alive with gods!

People smothered in soap, lather harshly, dunk, pray, sing, pray, dunk…

Buffalo skulk in the water, bathing, cooling;

Rumps and nostrils protrude from murky, opaque depths.

Monkeys scurry and bounce past sinking temples.

Intense puja drumming persists as

Colour and prayer escape from exquisite temples.

The constant plonk of aqua oars elevates the experience

To something spiritual.

This is a journey that I loathe to end -

An eternal, immortal stretch of freeze-frames, cramming the memory.

Reality is reinstated, with a lurching halt at the ghat steps.

[2004]