Blocked In
Ashok Niyogi © 2006
Rockslides in front of me
Take the road away,
Mud and uprooted trees
Take the road away,
Just round a bend
I have crossed.
Suspended above a gorge
Between river a mile below
And sky miles above,
Driving rain,
Clouds eat up pines.
Puddles form and run away
Between myself and me.
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Photograph
Ashok Niyogi © 2006
Nothing between
The sun and me.
Sheep stewarded
By the man and his dog
Across the road
And up the next incline,
After the last straggler is gone
I will be alone,
Standing just where I am.
I must move on,
Wash my face
By the mountain stream,
And enter the interplay
Of light and shade,
Primordial canopies
Of ancient trees.
Purgatory
Shaped by a designer God,
Heaven
Is above the snowline,
Now blinding,
Now hiding in opaque cloud.
Nicholas Roerich,
A pencil sketch will not do,
You need color for this.
Note: Roerich, a famous Russian artist and painter who did a lot of work in the Himalayas.
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Morning Tea
Ashok Niyogi © 2006
Sculpted into a wall of ice,
Gods of malignant device
Blight cherry orchards
With early frost.
Prematurely gray,
This mountain dawn
Moves westward
Like a locust swarm,
Silent plunder
Of my peaks in black.
Drops of dew
On blades of grass
Await fulfillment
Of insatiable lust,
Glitter with the morning ray,
And then burn away.
In my rose garden
Bees have arrived,
I contemplate
This erotic interplay ---
Wake my dogs,
And sip at tea
From porcelain cups.
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Ayin
Ashok Niyogi © 2006
In ten million years
They will approach
Middle age.
Wind, rain,
Sleet and ice,
Mountain streams
And waterfalls,
And humankind
Will etch wrinkles
On their face.
Ravines and rapine,
Sodomy
Will leave quarried stone
On post-menopausal
Riverbeds,
And I will dig
For wriggling worms
In lecherous mud.
They were born
And will be Ayin,
For they were born
Of the Ayin.
Tectonic plates
Will recreate.
The peasant man
Will be at work again,
Cutting terraces
Out of mountainsides,
For his one measly crop.
Note: Ayin (God) is borrowed from the Kabbalah and
literally means 'nothing'. I find the concept
rudimentarily common with the Hindu philosophy of
Advaitavad, which worships an eternal formless entity.
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Market Street
Ashok Niyogi © 2006
Market street,
Dimly lit
In the gathering dusk,
Teashops,
Tired vegetables
And fruit,
Camouflaged by the gloom,
Fabric stalls
With printed flowers,
The river is sound
Only sound,
People walk
To the bus-stand
Across the bridge,
Temple bells,
Conch shells,
Devotees leave
Shoes on the doorstep,
In descending cold.
Electric bulbs
Define the hillside town,
The evening meal.
Where is the liquor shop?
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