Gandhi Shrine
I follow this path in dreams.
end up at the shrine
again. The light is streaked
with gold. I am alone
or I am with my father.
What does it matter—
standing at a worn stone altar.
I don’t know
what makes this place holy.
I wonder for years
where I am in this dream,
where I belong.
My father leaves home,
we become strangers,
and the dream repeats.
I seek answers
in the chatter
of a blue-winged myna.
I understand
less than I did as a child
learning the alphabet
to the sound of a hand-drum
swimming in the Mullayar
River with no thought in mind.
If I forget to seek the shrine,
I still walk the path
my mind,
a thicket of butterfly wings.
Beyond the dappled shade
of a banana tree
I find ashes.
I find holy disobedience.
This is the truth of a nation
liberated by salt
and homespun dhotis.
Bapu’s shrine is within me.
I do not resist the silence.
I forget what is lost.
The pearl light of dawn
begins to rise.
*****
Ash of this Fire
My mother walks with certainty
straight to the mark
like an arrow
like the part of her hair,
the sun rising upon her brow,
she who holds the lost children of
an entire fishing village
upon her breast.
My mother is sandalwood,
my mother is fire rite,
my mother is drumbeat,
my mother is kumkum—
vermilion dawn and blood sundown.
Some say my mother drinks the blood of goats.
Behind closed doors, my mother
wears a garland of skulls.
In the throes of her ravenous dance, my mother
stomps hard upon her Lord’s bare ribs.
I am the ash of their fire in this
goshala turned temple
where hibiscus petal burns
and coconut shell goes up in smoke.
Sri Lal is the author of Atma Bodha (O Books, 2012), a collection of Indian hymns in English translation. Her own writings have appeared in Fiction International, the New York Quarterly, Epiphany, Daedalus, Descant, Bangalore Review, Bamboo Ridge, and others. She teaches literature and creative writing in the English Department at CUNY’s Borough of Manhattan Community College. Country of Residence: USA (New York, NY)
