Thursday, February 14, 2013

Lent

(Written on Ash Wednesday two years ago.  What began as a lament for a girl begging on the streets of Mumbai and became also a lament for the little girl within me.)


Little girl, who peers through smears of soot
which blur and run in the rain,
this lament is for you.
Life once fluttered around your shoulders
shimmered as it nested in your hair
chirping and humming as the air filled with light.
It lies broken now beneath the earth.

I too, have been marked with ashes
the dust of ancient hosannas
and so we meet death in each other's eyes.
Beneath the shroud of water and cloud
the throaty wail begins.
This lament is for you.

For you behind the windowpane
with prickling skin and ragged palms
as raindrops melt the waxen glass
you who have no name.

Behind this jail of ashen skin
we strain to hear the rooftops wail
in the dusky moments before breath
we wait for the creak of footsteps on the stair
for the rustle and murmur from corners of the room
for the ancient words that light the air
Talitha Koum! Little girl, get up!
You no longer dwell in the cold, dark places
the death-fumed spaces
You are named in to life!
Exhale the stale air of the tomb,
you are fresh and new! Get up!”

But today the stench of decay
hangs in the folds of cloth
as my palm meets yours across the glass
we are blue-lipped with death
we have not yet learned to breathe

Let the Naming begin.