A sampling
The Exile Speaks of Mountains In the Himalayan foothills during monsoon the electricity once stayed off for fifteen days. Every morning there was chai with sugar cubes and buffalo milk, delivered to our kitchen door in tin carafes strapped with thick ropes to a mule. We kept warm by feeding the stove log after log and entertained by watching our spit sizzle on its tin top. My brother held my hand on the trail to and from school, scanning for leopard scat or for thieving langur monkeys in the trees. I write this from my brick colonial in Baltimore, decades removed, drinking black tea with thick cream and sugar— the heat of exile churning in my blood. I drive an SUV, shop at Target, and fight tears at random moments, like when I open the door and enter the Punjab store down on 33rd, suddenly and viscerally at home among the turmeric and cardamom, the Neem soaps and steaming samosas under foil on the counter, while the kind owner offers a mango juice box to my daughter. Only if I embrace this life as a perpetual pilgrim do I find solace in remembering the terraced cemetery in the Himalayan pines where the mute woman and her donkey guard the graves, the distant beat of tabla drums, the bounce of our flashlights on the trail walking home at night, thrill of leopards in the dark, the high peak of Bandarpunch to the north, glowing in moonlight. Published in Little Patuxent Review, Summer 2018
It Wasn’t Odd Last night I dreamed my elderly neighbor sought me out, found me upstairs in my bedroom. Miz Dinty — her trademark black baseball cap, gold-crowned teeth flashing a grimace this time, not her mischievous smile — climbed into the bed I had just vacated in surprise, remarked on its warmth in the early light. I’m dying, she said, shivering. It’s coming now, baby. I hovered, then climbed in beside her, wrapped my arms around her, whispered how do you know? Maybe I didn’t ask her aloud. She just breathed in, then out. Because it was a dream it wasn’t odd that the two of us lay there warming, silent, unafraid. That I wanted this to be how she was ushered on. Published in Relief – A Journal of Art and Faith, Summer 2018
Cameo You hold a ready lens to each scene and verse waiting for yourself to come into focus: you’re Joseph— Judases for brothers, final recompense for your hurts— or Moses — eyes searching watery walls you’ve stepped between for shadow creatures, fissures, but on you walk, aware of trust, scanning for evidence of God in the seams— or perhaps an exile returning from Babylon — the crust of years falling from you, the shofar sounding its jubilant note as the last foundation stone settles in the dust. Yet what if you are not the favored son, but one who woke from dreams, number twelve in line for daddy’s attentions, trafficked for debt or indifferent profit, smote by an obscure hand, no dancing exodus; rather, death by your stripes in the shadows of a limestone mausoleum, born one generation too early for deliverance? What if exile makes such bitter work of your bones and brittle heart, the others must kiss you and depart to witness the stones’ rebirth, while you remain alone? The initial taste of meekness is tart as you adjust to your bit part. Published in St. Katherine Review, Volume 4, No. 3
Speak Like Rain
Kikuyu farm youth to Karen Blixen, after she
recited verses of poetry to them
Speak like rain, sister,
those smooth, plump drops that beat
water-rhythm on our chests—
words shaped like the curve
of an ear, the cup above the lobe—
fill it again.
Speak again, the rain
has been too long in coming
and this scorched sod waits;
words flew on wings and
summoned the plovers hunting
for new grass.
Speak like rain, play
those tricks with light and clouds,
hope and dry craziness;
words that smell far away
like the sea drifted here just now—
tasting of salt.
Published in Tiger’s Eye Journal, Summer 2013
Hospitality Sichuan, China In the lean-to kitchen the farmer’s wife juliennes and crushes, shivers of onion flying from the blade, steam hitting cold mist at the open door. I thrust booted feet at the tin of hot coals under the table outside and wait, wondering how many spontaneous meals have serviced me in my wanderlusting? How much ambrosial heat, sear and spice, plumping bulgar and pitted peach? It seems to be our needful thing to forage for the magic within our reach— the translucent rice grains, the flesh of all creatures griddled or charred, the way we wonder if nourishment exists in snapdragon, the cathaya’s winged seed— all the tastes we haven’t dared. And we wonder if the damp earth still has secrets to disclose that could remain wondrous and unstained even by our knowing, our prodding and splitting with the knife or the tongue. She emerges balancing three dishes on outstretched arms and sets them on the table, shrinking back in pleasure and gesturing with a gentle turn of hand. Eat! It’s just a little something. Published in Pen in Hand, 2017