Slice of India

The same year I came to America, 1997, I also visited India with my former boyfriend. He was interested in Sri Aurobindo, and he wanted me to check out Auroville, an intentional community in the South dedicated to Aurobindo’s principles to see if we might want to move there (I didn’t want to). India is the most amazing country I have ever been to. You can’t understand it with your mind. It’s a country where you have to surrender, otherwise you might be killed in a freak traffic accident.


I bend down and hand them
a bag of potato chips.
The bundle of bodies
begins to stir.
It unfolds as a woman,
a man, and two
serious children.
The woman speaks harshly to me.
A fresh scar
marks her belly,
as if a sword had sliced her.
The man looks tired,
the children are dirty.
They live on the sidewalk.
A blanket sprawls beneath them.
A steel pot and some cups are
the borders of their territory,
lined on the far end by
a ragged brown dog who surrenders
to four puppies sucking her dry.
Next to the curb a small rivulet runs slowly.
Street people squat within sight.

While I stand there,
inhaling the chaos,
of Pondicherry,
an elephant
with painted ornaments
on his gentle face
moves majestically past me
touching my crown with his trunk
in blessing.