New Delhi to Denver: April 28-29, 2011: Seventh Hymn to Siva

Published in the A Year in Resist: March 15, 2011-March 15, 2012, India and Nepal, Journal

There’s no getting away from death.
Drops of blood turned into dusty rubies by the sand.

Neither this nor that, she always smelled of lavender,
brown eyes with bits of gold—tiger’s eyes, she called them.

Is there a shadow behind the closed door?
Is it the room or the room reflected in a mirror?

By the beginning of May the cracks in the earth begin to close,
and there’s the clean air of after-the-rain, standing in the ficus shade.

Vultures wait in blackened ruins at the end of the road less traveled too,
but I knew that when I started.

I’m almost used to clouds instead of sun.
I give my pen a shake.

I dreamed this into existence,
and soon the dream will be over.

Already, only shadowy figures
floating across the landscape,

and soon the God of Memory
Mneme, will entirely disappear.