saturday night fever

let me see...
where was i?

ah, yes..india..delhi..
the end of 2011..
o so cold..in the north..
thick with fog
though dry dusty mud hung like dew
on the green shrubs and trees..
i was dusty too...
in a mist..

having told a friend or two before i left
that i just might die on this journey
to the mother india..
one was anxious by my premonition;
the other laughed and said:
you always think you're going to die..
which is true and i will..

due to fog, the flight to bodhgaya
was cancelled on decembre 30th..
so i landed under the bodhi tree on new year's eve..
along with a fever that seemed to be trailing me
since i left the u. s. of a....who knew?

i went out to the hazel wood
because a fire was in my head...
~ yeats

india has always been..will always be..
a place of great sea change for me..
a place of pilgrimage..an odyssey..a hajj...
indeedy, it was no different this time..

india is a place that one cannot quite prepare for..
one can ready oneself to the ends of the earth..
and in india the gods will have moved the ends
for lila, for grief, for wisdom, for svadyaya...

i spent the new year's evening in bed..
shaking and shivering like john travolta..
dancing his heart out..
as i too would do ~

day after day after day...