Jill McGrath
 
 

 

          RIDING TO KAKANI

Nepal

The terraces are green,

a green so light

it breathes

 

and the layers climb up

the hillside.

Level, precise

 

rice fields of life.

I hold onto my bike

as their full force immerses me.

 

I am green, I am light.

Just this terracing

and the shiver

 

of thin shoots.

A gnarled woman, her sari wrapped around her,

only adequate, dirty,

 

bends like music

following notes.

I know there’s fatigue and pain

 

and somewhere near, a before

and after of hunger.

Am I feeling her or seeing me

 

feeling lost, riding

a hillside, too far away from brown earth,

green fields,

 

blue sky,

passing through

while children sitting on the edge

 

of the path with nothing,

barely a shirt,

but a wire hoop and a laugh

 

and a stick to push it

and energy to run after me

rocks, bare feet,

 

belonging–

to this point, this path on a hillside

between heaven and earth,

 

between next and before,

becoming time

while I circle my legs,

 

my mind,

loops of abstraction,

thinking my life.

 

   

Copyright © 2002 Jill McGrath.  All Rights Reserved.

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