Vipassana, Day Seven
Wild grasses glow
indigo in the fading light.
I sit, half lotus, at the edge
of an irrigation ditch, and
feel the tiny feet of lavender
and yellow moths alight on my knee,
searching for the scent
of an already eaten orange.
Overhead, bald-headed brown birds
glide towards the palms that shade
me, outstretched wings, wide
as a child's arms, curved
to embrace the sky.
In the distance, coffee-colored
women wave home
scattered children and stir
fires, gold toe rings glinting
in the flame, pomegranate
headscarves disappearing into dusk.
All around me, orange and black
butterflies, surely consorts of monarchs,
weave loose lazy spirals around
the rasp of rust-spotted beetles
and the rattling conversations
of spike-necked lizards and crows.
At my feet, the earth's elbows crack
and crumble in angled chunks, covering
everything—the whistling palm fronds,
the women, the world—in a thin layer
of fine gray dust like dead skin.
I idly gather small shards of
pottery, made of the same red mud
as man, and wonder
how they, like me, came to be
here in Bangalore, silently watching
the sun set over this singing field.
