Photo of the Day: Église

Her potential is an unlit prayer candle,

Waiting.

Wax white,

against an alter.

And she’s trying to ignite with wet matches,

Striking and discarding the moist sticks

            -madness to her method

Struggling against the tides

because her ambition threw off the moon,

she’s trying to cast a shadow on the pew,

between the sun

and nothing.

Hospitality’s Served in Tin Cups

photo by Christine Hewitt

Hospitality's Served in Tin Cups

She’s on a side street of Lakshmipurim,

            here in India,

around the corner from chai wailing wallahs,

and down the street from men working hard as their mules.

Wedged, as India prefers, between rags and rituals;

Not too close to poor, but miles away from money.

She’s just wave of the hand to catch a ride away –

from the marble

American dollar worship

in hotels.

            That hospitality can only open doors,

            he’s paralyzed without pay.

But she is served in small metal cups of rice pudding,

Lumpy but so kind, sugary milk, she welcomes us.

She is in her offering of blue plastic chairs (her finest).

She sits on the floor and smiles and stares

            she brings her family to watch too. So we’re sure they care.

Mysore Mornings

The sun smiles, creased eyes aglow,

as she pours her

buttered ghee light across

our hungry earth.

In these hours after daybreak

nature respects her generosity.

We’re famished,

just practiced.

So.

“Eat ghee. Good. No problem,” she says, our Indian mother,

her glowing hands dip ladles

of coconut oiled sunshine

towards our mouths.

They’re agape

with the same obedience

of the earth

when receiving light.

These flowers say ignore me

This tree has strewn

Paper-thin crepe flowers.

Their pale petal’s crinkled edges

barley display that tinge of purple

tree-life gave them.

And their folds along delicate sides

float and land next to the mix of

trash. Crumpled

mini candy wrappers

also white from the sun’s bleach

and plastic bags bear

witness to water

bottle lids

My India-induced mind,

for one moment forgets,

which is beautiful.

And which is not.