Grandfather, India
I was twenty six years old when I saw
the Himalayan Mountain range for the first time.
I remember how abruptly
it rose from the rice paddies like
a row of hands signaling “STOP!”
“You shall not pass here.”
There is a reason the Hindus believe
their gods reside in the these mountains.
Only gods would smash a subcontinent into Asia
in an attempt to get the sky’s attention.
Only gods would pull the ether so close
and insist to be kissed by her.
It is the nature of gods to seek residence
in the openness of sky
and there I was flying in it,
catching a bird’s eye peek of peaks
that seemed to stretch all the way back
to my grandfather’s gaze
the first time he told me these things existted.
In those days his eyes
were my airplane windows
and I, a limb of his Bodhi tree
understood that he had grown up
where the Buddha breathed.
He had lotus blossom hands
His stories were prayer beads
he strung around my neck
so that he could pull me back
when he saw me drifting
too far from my purpose
For whatever reason,
he saw in me a need;
an aching for the sky
so he produced photo albums
full of beings who knew her best,
Sepia toned images of hands pressed
together in prayer
Black and white photographs of monks
whose eyes arced like raven wings
gleefully taking to the wind
prayer wheels spinning
to the backdrop of India.
India
the cough of car horns choking
on exhaust, exhausting jaunts
through mazes of people
amazing in their arrangements
flowers arranged in doorsteps
side stepping copious piles of cow shit
squatting to shit over holes that belched urine smells
smelling jasmine and sandalwood
would travel by rickshaw, plane, train, and taxi
to watch Himalayan spine
unfurl in long stretches, morning stretching
over my yoga practice, bending over the jumbled
jenga of shoddy construction,
huddling over construction paper
giving crayons to children who’d never colored before
The color of saris bleeding into vision
like high definition dye, homeless man
dying on the street corner, dead guy by the piss wall,
the 5am call to prayer, the prayer beads, beads of sweat
protesting intense humidity, the soft
swirl of the pilgrim’s hands in the Ganges
stirring my memory
toward my grandfather
who came to me as if in a dream,
a beam of light planting a seed
that would grow to lead my back
to the land
of my awakening.
-Lyndsey McGuire
Roxanna Kopp Smith 