is rising over the far shore's
ashen wasteland like the first blood glow
of a slow atomic explosion,
weakJy illuminating the gre:1t wall
of crumbling temples th:1t , on this bank , curves off
in both directions into pak and smoky light.
The ghats arc coming to life. The first bathers -
women in bright saris, men in loincloths -
dunk themselves in the river's gray water,
cupping the liquid in trembling hands,
lifting it to the sun, and letting it splash down
as they mumble :1 three-thousand-year-old prayer.
Soon the gh:lts arc swarming with peopk .
Some foam at the mouth, brushing their teeth with twigs,
squatting barbers shave their customers,
and women wallop laundry against flat stolles.
It's like a holy, urban beJCh:
gray-bearded brahmins, naked to the waist,
oil up under big rattan umbrella s
or do yoga ca listheni cs,
flexing their spiritual muscles
and making their bulging bellies quiver.
Emaciated sadhus with matted hair
lean on their staffs or meditate on platforms.
Old men who have come fi-om all over India
sit on the stone steps, waiting to die;
at the moment of death, Shiva whispers
the Mantra of the Great Crossing in their car,
and they disappear forever fi-om this life
of suffering, from the weary cycle of death
and rebirth. Children fly paper kites
in the smoke plumes rising from the burning ghat.
A pair of legs, intact, dangles off a pyre.
A mourner prods a blackened head
to release the soul and keep the skull
from bursting. Other bodies, wound
