Two Poems from an Ashram in India
First
All this talk of nectar and bliss is starting to piss me off.
I don’t know about you, my friend,
but my path to God ain’t no sweet waft of incense.
It’s a cat set loose in a pigeon pen, and I’m the cat—
but also them who yell like hell when they get pinned.
My path to God is a worker’s uprising, won’t be peace till they unionize.
Their picket is so fearsome
the National Guard won’t go near them.
My path was beaten unconscious before me, by a small brown man I never got to see,
who chased God through India, shin-deep in mud, barefoot and famined, malarial blood,
sleeping in doorways, under bridges—a hobo.
(Which is short for “homeward bound,” you know) And he now chases me, saying: “Got it yet, Liz?
What HOMEWARD means? What BOUND really is?”
Second
However.
If they’d let me wear pants made out of the fresh-mown grass from this place,
I’d do it.
If they’d let me make out
with every single Eucalyptus tree in Ganesh’s Grove, I swear, I’d do it.
I’ve sweated out dew these days, worked out the dregs,
rubbed my chin on tree bark, mistaking it for my master’s leg.
I can’t get far enough in.
If they’d let me eat the soil of this place served on a bed of birds’ nests,
I’d finish only half my plate, Then sleep all night on the rest.
