Where there are sidewalks, there are
no guard rails, despite steep drop-offs
on this hillside city. Despite exhaust
from taxis and trucks, little cherry tree
seedlings stake a claim between the city
streets and roadside parking—their niche,
a vertical plot of land, bridging earth
to sky. Cacophony of brightly colored
shop signs and colorful wares
create a maze for cars and walkers.
The late afternoon sun shines
above the blue mountains.
Beyond the multistory buildings
the horizon unveils row on row
of green and blue mountains,
fading into gray.
Suspended like a paper lantern
above the mountain ranges,
the late afternoon sun hangs,
round as a full moon,
washed pink as cherry petals.

Though the apple is scented,
even the petal—bruised
and decaying in the leaf mulch
under the tree trunk—
exhales a fragrance.

Our sorrows are like frost on a blossom;
pain, both fleeting and final.
The blossom drops without bearing fruit
and yet, let the earth revolve
around the sun full circle:
the blossom may yet ripen into fruit.

There are some truths that are too beautiful
to share. Only receive the beauty
and give thanks. Even metaphors
only dimly mirror this truth.
You were drowning but then you gasped,
filling your lungs with air,
and once again you are afloat.
You slid down a wet rockface
and landed, like a cat, on your feet
uninjured. You lost your one jeweled ring,
but when you swept the ashes from the fire,
it appeared, shining, in the dust pan.

What would you accomplish
through immortality
that you can’t accomplish
by living once?
The flower makes her blossom
and blooms for a few seasons.
What would she accomplish
through endless spring?
The seed buries itself and waits.

Nature abhors a vacuum, likewise,
the streets of Delhi, where cars
brake and advance, rhythmically pulsing,
like lungs taking in air, or air filling
bellows for a fire. Everything
now alternates
between giving and taking.
Vendors and pedestrians weave
through traffic, offering wares
or collecting bills and coins.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and for this reason,
the river flows through the canyon
and rain gushes through the once dry riverbed.
On every continent, in every land,
this same truth holds.

And even in dark alleys
and closeted valleys,
where there is fear or hate,
which is only a vacuum or absence,
haltingly,
love lurches in.

Let the brush speak over the canvas.
Let it play with light like the wind
running its fingers through clouds
at sunset, raking the air
into layered billows of color.
Let the brush speak, liquid on paper
as the running river that overflows
the rocky streambed.
Let the brush speak—wordless, yet
not silent—channeling the hum
of spring’s early nesters and winged insects—
rustle of leaves in wind.

Though the fog makes no noise
as it hovers over valleys
and silently lifts its feet
over green mountains receding
into blue, let the brush
speak its magic as branches
tangle like tousled hair.

When the fog withdraws, let the sun
light fire in our lungs, flush skin
ripen like fruit. Let the sun
warm faces as the embers of fire
warm the cat on the hearth.
Let the brush spill like sunlight
when the fog withdraws.
Let the earth silence the spade.
Let the fruit ripen,
wind jostle the leaves in the terraced orchard,
clear as the air after the storm: the window pane, the page.

From the third story balcony,
the walkers below the power lines
appear like tightrope walkers.
No geese ever honked like these rickshaws.
A street the color of spilled candy,
marbled colors rearrange themselves
while keeping to the left
around the hairpin turn
or while passing a slower means of transport.
A vegetable cart offers a colorful palette.
Even the veins of the daikon radish
show purple. For now, a scent
of roasted peanuts permeates the street
while the gurgle of a pigeon
rises above the ringing
of the bicycle’s mechanical bell.

All humankind is of one Author:
The man who pedals the rickshaw,
the small girl selling roses
as she weaves between cars,
the broad-shouldered woman
with a flower behind her ear.

Along the highway, even the cows
lying on narrow islands of the median
are a piece of the continent,
a part of the main.

So, too, the veiled women
chatting on the red sandstone plaza
of the mosque, the man selling pineapple slices,
the four tired travelers
climbing back into the rickshaw.

White Flower

Magnificat

Every moment trumpets
an annunciation if you only look:
the light reflecting off waves,
the branches keeping guard
over buds until fullness of spring.
Each blade of grass, every living thing
waits to dazzle
at the appointed moment
when it unfurls
like an embryonic seedling.

For light has no vanishing point;
Mount Taylor’s white magnifies light
while the pale blue cloak of sky
warms the gray of bark and branch.
Meanwhile, in the flattened foreground,
Earth, as she both
absorbs heat and scatters light,
warms the green
inside the seed coat—
all of life hurtling forward.