Perfumed blessings
Greasy candle stumps
flicker dimly
like hopeless souls
as dawn blossoms
and tatty prayer mats
ceremoniously unfold
Down by the river ghats
worshippers congregate
a tired sadhu blows
an old conch shell
women bathe and sing
men wail and chant
united in prayer
the sick and poor
the young and old
Devotees make offerings
to makeshift, plastic deities
at filthy roadside shrines
as a crippled widow defecates
and a lame holy cow
saunters nonchantly by
As ancient temple bells toll
plumes of sapphire incense
fan the polluted, dusky sky
like ethereal peacock feathers
before wafting blissfully
towards beautiful mystic idols
with exotic kholled eyes
Cheap paper lanterns
crafted in Delhi sweat shops
in vile pink, sickly emerald
and loud, gaudy gold
embrace the sticky
scented, bejewelled night
like garish butterflies
As funeral pyres are lit
and mourners gather
Ganesh floats serenely
down the rippling Ganges
cocooned in a moonlit halo
of rancid, wilting flowers
dreaming of paradise
Beady eyed vultures circle
as devilish flames devour
human flesh and bone
and weary spirits hover
in the charred shadows
As the moon fades away
only cloying ashes remain
scorching and staining
the stifling morning breeze,
which desperately longs
for cool, cleansing rains
Copyright © 2013 Anne D Morgan
