to the northland

All oceans are equal, connected by currents through rivers and streams and clouds and creatures, and when I come to the sea, I am home. I feel it, as my sweat and my body and my blood, a sense of recognition. All flows towards this final destination, and when the water of my soul mingles with the waters of the world I can finally rest. But I came to India to leave my sanctuary, and I must move beyond my shore, to the unknown north the sky and earth pull me away.

I exhale the forests of palms, shimmers of salt scales, dying jellyfish clouds and breathe in pine and moss bundled burls, fingers clenching and stretching, ribs expanding to accomodates acclimate thin air so close to heaven. Rising slowly in the heavy bus berth weary euphoric vertigo washes over and pours out the window passage. Snow rock ridges and cloud rows are indistinguishable as lines colors thoughts blur into sleep unity. Passing signs give guidance, This is our land, please keep it clean. Don't even think about parking here. Silence, the trees are sleeping. Slush softy.

The peace of the stirring hilltop town is interrupted only by naughty monkeys with dirty mouths who swear incessantly, hissing down from safe perches and jabbering back and forth. They wear crimped flat tops with black and white streaks and watch us with disdain and wonder, plucking leaves with decisive movements and questioning the validity of evolution. A child swings from a cable and dangles before the drop, suspended in flight. Another pounces onto the counter of a general store, runs straight for the top ramon, bites down on the package and prances away. The shopkeeper shoes at the stray with a broom too late. Dressed donkeys show their crooked smiles and shake their heads.

The Himalayas emerge as a mirage in the distance, bright white teeth with black rolling hill gums holding them. We climb with other pilgrims to a temple above the world and see all ways at once emerge from us, surrounded by tibetan prayer flags and rows of brass bells and hindu altars, and the orange god knows what I'm thinking so I bow low and tell him to hush. Offerings are made with the crack of mallets on coconut and crows cry out in responce. Cement rooms filled with smoke seep into our skin and leave blessings in our trail as we decend into the cold world below. The trees begin again, and I buy a sappaling from a park, a Banj oak, to plant in a space of sunshine, for dad. They have no tools, and I work the hard earth with a pointed board and scoop it with my hands. Just across the stone wall a bent woman with rosy rawhide cheeks tends her goats, and I wonder if they will wander over the wall, if my tree will be safe and grow strong, but I don't mind, because what death is more nobel than enabling another to live.

A weathered man with grease creased hands hides nothing fromt the street under the flourescent lights of a green room. He twists wires into empty sockets of a grey black box, something old and outdated, born before I was. He looks up and far away through me at someone behind with a wheeled tray of peanuts piled in a pyramid and crowned by a smoke stained cast iron skillet. She shifts coals in the skillet split from wood scraps on the pavement, and her face glows solemnly, like an apparition. The coals burn amber and orange, and I want to stop and warm my hands, but I'm not hungry. I look at him watching her, and he licks his lips, and our eyes meet for a moment, understanding but not entirely, and we both turn away and back to our work, weary. The city, the night, is the man's world and everyone shifts between shadows and highlights, chewing and spitting and smoking, and discussing nothing. These men, out late, are rich, or consider themselves so, and there's no one I could bum a beedie from, and their keys jingle in their pockets. A man with keys has possessions, and the sisters warned me about that.