Along Dusky Roads

This post is dedicated to all my lovely friends in India. A year ago, I was exploring your cities, fields, and villages. I was bumbling through the complexities of your warm and colorful culture. You taught me so much about your world, about myself, and about God. Thank you. Yes, thank you for stealing bits of my heart.

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Along Dusky Roads

I’ve lost part of my heart.

I don’t know if I’ll find it again.

Bits of it got jostled loose

As we bumped along roads

With cows and goats and pigs and dogs.

Where swarms of buses and motos honked.

Where colorful dresses swished

And bushy black heads bobbed.

Where dusty feet, skinny jeans,

And flopping sandals milled around.

It was raided in the market

Where pungent smells

Permeated the air.

Parents propped up sleepy children

On their wobbling bikes.

Drongos squawked from dubious webs

Of sagging telephone lines;

Smoke swirled from cooking fires,

And flower chains swayed from posts—

Perfuming all the air.

I think I lost bits of it,

Sifted into bowls of vivid powdered dye.

Could such a thing be possible?

Some of it melted

As I watched the flaming sun

Set behind drooping palms—

Guardians over heaps and heaps

Of chilis on the field.

The molten substance of my heart

Mingled with the blood-red rice paddies

As the last minutes of day slid away.

Mist and smoke and dust

Wove blankets o’er the land.

Dusk fell over all the paved roads

Lined with orange blossoms,

The dung roads

 Lined with open sewers,

The dirt roads

Lined with fathers, mothers,

Children, workers, beggars.

Darkness hid it all.

I’m still looking for my heart.

Stolen in the marketplace,

Sprinkled here, sifted there.

I left some of it behind.

Perhaps someday

I can go find it again.

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