ride and rice,
anthem of ours,
speak we must
of such hours:

 

in the distance
where parallel lines meet,
where pronghorns and unicorns
gallop on the outsides of the
fickle nature of human forms,
where one can catch glimpses
of a half naked child
with a mucuous bleeding nose
crying frantically at the side of
clay walls fed by cow dung stoves,
that woman with her dark face
brightly lit as she pulls out
her collection of rag-made bags
trying to make a sales pitch
in search of her next meal,
those brackets of the day
that we call afternoons
when lazy annas huddle
around trees to culminate
on village fictions,
that old amma tired from
selling spiced capsicum
for forty years of her life,
that could have been very different,
perhaps happier,
had she been married elsewhere,
that sunset with a full sun,
now bared of its rays,
all orange and red,
embracing the grey of the dusk
infront of it,
those homeward cattle,
goats, cows and their babies,
all perplexed at the need for
whips from sticks by their human elders
even though they know their way back,
all too distinct,
all too insignificant,
all in the distance:

 

 

​