American Labor Day

Trees are screeching alive with birds at september’s dawn. We don’t know
Whether they are visiting or coming or going.
Snow will fall in the mountains, possibly. It’s strange
Georgie Girl died this year; Boy George finally out of prison. We sigh
To each other in text msgs, absent offspring grown now in a world so small
We touch each other w/ a single syllable. our children all seem
To be living in china, spain or brazil,
bemoaning the fates of fatted calves strengthened w/ carcinogenic hormones
& chickens raised in concentration camps, infants hosting & harboring tiny
microbes as yet unnamed,
& the challenges of losing weight on diets loaded with unseen killer carbohydrates.
From our foamy chaises on padded derrieres,
We still want to weep with maudlin self pity
over hard times we recall when someone from our neighborhood
Was killed in Vietnam over half a century ago
Tho between us, we can’t seem to remember his name now
in these groups where we each purchase our own perfectly brewed coffee, we
still manage to purge a puked up poem from our own ancient recollections. Back home, we turn on gas fireplaces for the first time this season, feel a newly
arthritic wrist, cry discreetly
over the stock market & conspiratorial candidacies.
We wonder if our banks hold water, or gold.
Hair replacement products are sold during tv network news, accompanying
sex enhancing chemicals, cholesterol controllers, a supplement guaranteed
to grow yr own eyelashes, some new abatement for
excessive pressure of the blood.
Every moment a miracle or two is stalking us on the internet.
Still, we sigh over electronic & environmental progress, & bitterly denounce
fortunes made & squandered by people a fraction of our age who drive foreign cars off their own hillside cliffs, taking wife & children with them, a perfect hole in one. Outside, under the hum of electric wires burdened with a trillion satellite signals carrying cacaphonous messages, earthquakes, floods, fires & rumors of war
Trees are screeching with birds
on overloaded wires that hum a loud blues dirge to a nonexistent & unhearing audience
Unmonitored by you tube or the 60 minute news
Even at the birth of September, a most glorious Labor day.

इन india

in India, i learn in 2 weeks that after 55 years
there are no shortcuts
that the india of my girlhood dream had long ago evaporated
Vanished the fancy floating tent lids of various shade & hue
Trumped now by the cirque de soleil
Disappeared the snakecharming dhoti-clad noseflutists
Weaving mystical melodies on cobblestone corners
Now, the bindi laden overweight sullen desk clerks
That I possibly met in seattle
Forgoing namaste for a nod & expressing
The final holdout of a racist regime, calling me “mem”
Only for the sake of my unpronounceable Norwegian surname
& the slightest possibility that they have lost my reservation.

in India,i learn
That the moment i began to form suspicions, to hold
dark Judgments in my mind, a human being will explode it
a filthy, clear eyed child who offers me a rose, not having eaten
is called a worthless beggar
By people polishing off meat sandwiches
At a nearby subway franchise; & in an elevator,
a warm & smiling turbaned gentleman from Dubai
Tells me it’s even hotter at home.
“But it’s that dry heat,”
i gently refrain from reminding him.

In India, i learn
That there is no dodging the decades
Of karma you thought you’d released. The lens you want
To turn on others must be pointed back at Self; the old friends
you had mistaken for enemies, & avoided
Are waiting for you, sharpening knife blades in their skirts
As calmly they prepare for psychic surgery
The moment your head hits the pillow,
Hoping this time to open your life-veins for love.

in India, i learn again the things
that time & cultural complacency have caused me to forget.
That the value of a dollar is never fixed. Every scale is sliding
And yr price is determined, among other factors,
by the number of gold bangles you wrap around yr sleeve,
advertising to the world just what you’re worth, or at least
the estimated value of yr husband. in India, I learn
that some values are indeed without compromise.
The face of Ghandi, for example, adorns the currency in all denominations
down to & including the humble 5 rupee coin, and recollect how
“Mahatma” means “Great soul.”

In india, I learn
That I cannot learn India driving thru a couple of massive cities
On an air conditioned bus with double wide cushioned seats
To comfort american derrieres. That the story behind every ashram wall
might be the same, or very different, that some temples
will force you to doff your sandals; others want harder donations, &
the most sublime allow no photography,  nor video, nor shoes.

in India, i learn
that the India you learn from travel agents is not real
But neither is the India you visited, however briefly
that the place you missed seeing is always right around the corner
from the place where you spent the entire afternoon
Having the time of your life, & that somehow
The Divine Cosmos ordered up the entire imagination.

In India, i learn that there are not as many curries as there are villages.
but there are as many curries as there are chefs
& every family has a secret recipe, that was not yet another gift
God mysteriously granted to your family alone. in India,
i learn that having failed to learn India,
My new great dream is to return, search again
go on looking in villages & mountain byways mist
to find the sacred dancing festivals & random holy men
& really this time see India, the one I know deep in my heart
still hides existing there, before (i)
[die]