Filling an Empty Place

Today is my last day in Bloomington for awhile. I'm just finishing up some last-minute tasks before heading off to India again. Although I am excited to return, this time I am acutely aware of the people and places I'm leaving behind, even if only temporary. There is a good amount of sadness mixed with the excitement. I am the happiest I've been in a long time, but more conscious of the consequences of time and choice. I will miss dearly my family and friends, old and new. Although this will certainly be an adventure, it will be one that has been planned for me, and it will involve a great deal of work and learning.

Here's a poem I published a couple of years after my last trip to India:


Filling an Empty Place
 
Delhi
Human filth and cow dung mingles with burning ghee;
clove, cinnamon, cardamom cuts
through and covers it over.
I never see the sun
cross Main Bazaar, only an orange
haze that chokes the morning apple
carts and illuminates the high
honks of hellish gridlock.
It carries away the cannabis
cologne and midnight catfights.
 
I meet the hippies that came
in the sixties and stayed, never learning
Hindi.
 
Kerala
Estuarine islands and mountaintop monsoons.
wearing an open lungi
in the muted colors of common workers,
I eat coconut cuisine and converse
quietly in Malayalam, under the call
to prayer and a cricket match. Chirping
geckos croon my sweaty nights
under the mosquito
net, punctuated by apocalyptic thunder,
machineguns and cannons.
 
In the hills at Top Station I’m harassed
by fireworks, sweets, and tea plantations.
 
Goa
It’s a mile to the motorbike through dense jungle;
the jaguar stalking me
growls and the monkeys go silent.
On haughty cliffs I explore a ruined fort.
On the Arabian Sea sands I live
in huts with the lepers
and make fun of foreigners
with a Pakistani.
 
I pay the poor kids contorting
on tightrope, and ride
to every hilltop or valley
village, refilling the petrol
with my broken Konkani.

Maryland
I had forgotten winter’s cruel
quiet. I don’t tell
my friends that I’ve returned, and walk
for hours alone
with only the crunch of snow-steps.
I learn again not to look
at strangers, let alone
smile or say hi.
What does hello mean to anyone, anyway?
 
When the solemn tedium crushes
me, I sneak off to find hotels
owned by outsiders,
just to haggle the price.