Flyover work under Prrogress

7 Oct 2007
Ranikhet, Uttaranchal

And when it was red on
one side, green on the other,
blue on the final two.
The dogs of this valley
called the dogs on the
other side of the hill, where
perhaps they dry their chillies
differently, and the
monkeys are not yet in heat.

Underneath my shawl
my collarbones burn my resting
fingers, frigid and forgotten
paused in writing
drowned in colours
slowly turning
Himalayan night.

Tombs of these colours
built by people of the farther
Hills are fed by waters
These careful waters so
described to the men today
who sat, crosslegged, days
and days, and learned where
water comes and goes, and how
a heart pump is like a water pump.
And while we have you here,
why the earth turns and how an
eye works and what
methane makes.

Until yesterday, I had never seen
a ginger plant. I didn’t know
mountains rocks are really
water, ancient and newly
gathered by barefoot engineers.

Lights through the valley floor sit
safely lacking the water
kept in trees up here.
An old man sorts lentils by a
single bulb.
As I watch the blue take over
sneezing, shivering, hoping for chai
wondering how to put
into a poem both
cow dung and colonialism.