Abandoned Temple
A brambly thicket of blackberry canes
squats, a votary, before it.
Another autumn slowly ticks away.
Veils of mist smile on nervously
at this victim of unmoving grass.
A wandering boy hurls a rock through
the ruined entrance. Shadows in retreat fly;
of serpent-girls, elephant-gods, fiery birds.
Mosquitoes slap the Siva linga in ignorant stillness,
a long shiver running down the shrine.
A ghost holding its gaze to a distant tenderness.
In an expanded pupil of stone
a whitened hibiscus twists its way
along the phosphorescent wake of a moonbeam
toward a winter-life of ritual and innocence.