Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Of pilgrimage and divinity

Pilgrimage as a niche for battered souls,
and leverage of the faithful
cure festering sins
Unholy entente, corporate deals, imperial politics
damage the essence of pilgrimage now.

Divinity is a reason for pilgrimage
and if woven with ambiguity,
is a threat to the individual
Sisypus knew it well
as does a laborer or rickshawalla.

But divinity and pilgrimage is a casual concoction of
status symbol, power play and bankrupt religiosity
for rulers and regimes blessed with timorous teeth and tenacity.

Serpentine Thrills

for D H Lawrence

She saw the snake skin first,
against the wall,
like crumpled paper,
and we rushed to read it
for clues and explanations
as though it were a discarded
love letter, which in a way it was.

We knelt together over it
with a curious reverence,
our own itchy skins full
of admiration and envy
for that ease of removing ourselves,
without the need of water, or wind.